


Playing Defense

by SeptSapphire



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Canon-Typical Violence, Child Endangerment via the lab, Homophobic Language, Lab!Steve, M/M, Powers!Steve, Slurs, season 2 centric
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-03
Updated: 2020-03-03
Packaged: 2021-02-28 03:28:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 22,606
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22996939
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SeptSapphire/pseuds/SeptSapphire
Summary: In 1969, a young boy went missing from the safe, friendly neighborhood of Hawkins, Indiana. In 1978, the same boy came stumbling out of the woods around the old Hawkins Lab. It should have meant something, but for a long time, it didn’t.After all, Hawkins was a town full of secrets. Few residents had any idea of what lurked beneath their feet, waiting, hiding in their own backyards. Over time, Steve Harrington grew to learn these secrets for himself. But Steve had a secret of his own he was keeping. A secret about the lab, and about his own past. And he was doing a damn good job of keeping it too, if he did say so himself.And then Billy Hargrove entered his life, and everything went to shit.
Relationships: Billy Hargrove/Steve Harrington, Past Steve Harrington/Nancy Wheeler - Relationship
Comments: 19
Kudos: 398
Collections: Harringrove Big Bang 2019





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This work is part of the 2019 Harringrove Big Bang, which means it has AMAZING art made by the wonderful [kishock-harpoon on tumblr](https://kishock-harpoon.tumblr.com/) which you can check out [here!](https://kishock-harpoon.tumblr.com/post/611543943766753280/my-second-set-of-artwork-for-the-harringrovebang) Thank you so much for being an amazing big bang partner, I'm absolutely in love with the art <3

On the night of November 16th, 1969, Police Chief Anderson received a frantic call from Maria Harrington. Between sobs and desperate shouts for Anderson to _find him this instant_ , Mrs. Harrington managed to convey that her three year old son had gone missing.

At first, she hadn’t provided him with many details. She’d insisted he was just with her in the house a moment ago, and he must have been snatched by some hooligan or horrible criminal that had broken in, and that she certainly had no idea where to look for him. After a quick search of the house, she let it slip that she’d left him out in the backyard for only a moment while she’d come in to answer a call from her husband Richard, and when she’d returned he’d vanished.

Anderson took one look at the deep, heated swimming pool in the Harrington’s backyard, still uncovered in the November chill and lacking any sort of fence, and was at least thankful the missing kid had been smart or lucky enough to stay away from the water. It was something he and Mrs. Harrington should discuss at a later date, but he had more pressing concerns at the time.

Chief Anderson followed their typical procedures for missing person’s cases and potential kidnappings, though Hawkins didn’t often see many of those. He checked in on Richard Harrington, but if the phone call didn’t give him a solid enough alibi, the business trip to Chicago he’d been on certainly did. Not to mention the fact that he and Maria still lived in the same house, so there wasn’t much for him to gain from taking the kid.

After that, all their hope went into search parties. It was possible the kid had just wandered off; the Harrington property was right at the edge of the woods, which meant a kid his age left to his own devices might have headed into the trees and gotten lost on his way back. About the only semi-promising clue they’d gotten had been found by Rodriguez and Hopper, which was something that looked like it might have been tire tracks if you squinted hard enough and brushed away the covering of leaves. When the trail dead-ended at the fence around the Hawkins Lab, they disregarded the tracks as a lost animal and wishful thinking, and headed back into the hunt.

Anderson had tried tracking down anyone the Harringtons knew that might have had motive to take their kid, but nothing ever came of it. No ransom note was delivered, and after all the searching they’d done in the woods there was little chance the kid was hiding out in there. After two days Anderson confronted, for the first time, the possibility that the kid might never be found. Maria Harrington might never see her son again, only because of a lapse in attentiveness and some damn rotten luck.

It had been a simple mistake. A single act of negligence on a record that Mrs. Harrington repeatedly assured Chief Anderson was otherwise perfectly spotless. And yet its consequences were no less dire for the accident it had been.

After a week, the search parties slowed. After two, hardly anyone spoke the boy’s name. By the time a month had come and gone, it was almost as if the youngest Harrington had never existed in the first place. Maria had dried her tears, Richard had gone back to work, and Hawkins had swallowed up the dark secret of the missing boy.

Anderson could never let himself forget about that boy he’d been unable to save though. It was a regret he’d felt every day since, and one that had followed him into retirement and eventually into the grave. It had been ultimately why he’d picked Hopper as his successor all those years later; even as a wet-behind-the-ears rookie, Hopper had dedicated himself entirely to leading search parties and hunting down potential witnesses. He’d been shaken by the idea that a Hawkins kid could be snatched right out from under them without a trace. It was a pain Hopper later felt much more keenly, much more personally, but back in those days he’d felt it for a little boy he’d never even met.

Anderson knew he was leaving the position in good hands. By the time he passed away, nearly a decade after what they’d ultimately ruled as a kidnapping with no suspects, there was hardly anyone who still thought of the missing boy, and none who spoke about him. Because Hawkins was a safe town. It was friendly and quiet and you knew your neighbors, and there was absolutely nothing to be afraid of. It’s what everyone said, so it had to be true.

~~~

On June 25th, 1978, a young boy emerged from the woods, and something unhinged in Hawkins clicked quietly back into place.


	2. Chapter 2

Seven’s Papa was not a very nice man. He loved Papa of course, he had to after all, but he’d started to realize that Papa scared him sometimes. It was the sort of fear that left his gut churning when he wasn’t able to do what Papa asked of him, the sort that insisted he just wasn’t trying hard enough and left him willing to do anything just to prove he could do better, he could _be_ better.

It didn’t mean Seven didn’t love Papa, or that Papa didn’t love him. It just meant that he needed to try harder.

Especially when his abilities weren’t working right again. He was sure he’d had them under control this time. He’d been able to feel the emotions of the guards perfectly fine, like he had every day. They’d been annoyed and tired, so Seven had kept quiet and tried not to draw any attention to himself, though he mostly wanted to slump back into his chair in relief.

But when Papa had come in, his power had gone all weird again. Because what he had said to Seven didn’t match the emotions Seven had felt. Papa had said he loved him and that he was proud of him, and that he was doing well today. But instead of the pulse of warmth he felt from the nice new intern lady when she’d smiled and waved at him earlier that day, Seven felt a chill waft off of Papa and pass through him. He tugged his arms across his chest, pulling at the thin fabric of the sleeves and trying not to shiver, because shivering would tell Papa his powers were working wrong again and then he’d have to do more tests and he was just so tired and didn’t want to make Papa mad at him again, not when he’d been so proud of him before.

So Seven did not tell Papa what he really felt, and instead said what he should have felt, and Papa smiled at him and another cold wave made goosebumps rise across his skin but he didn’t acknowledge those either. He thought it should have made him feel bad, not telling Papa the truth, but it hadn’t. It really hadn’t.

When he was allowed to go back to his room for the day, Seven found that he couldn’t quite bring himself to feel bad about it at all, actually.

~~~

He had thought that at some point he wouldn’t have to pretend anymore. Someday whatever was wrong with him would be fixed, and he wouldn’t have to say something he didn’t feel anymore. But whatever was broken with his ability didn’t ever seem to get fixed, so Seven had no choice but to continue to pretend it had never been broken at all.

And yet it didn’t seem to be broken when it came to anyone else.

He still understood the feelings of the guards. He knew when to avoid being difficult because their patience was wearing thin, and when they seemed to be in good enough moods to let him get away with something. He’d even felt a flash of fear, though quickly subdued, from that nice intern when she had been escorted away from his room. That one had confused him, but he was sure it was right, because the brief feeling had been so intense it had left him with a nosebleed, and he didn’t always get those for little emotions.

He hadn’t seen her again after that day. Whatever had scared her must have made her decide to leave. It was okay because sometimes people went away, and Seven was a big boy now, so he wasn’t going to cry just because the nice intern was gone.

But he knew his powers were working just fine on everyone else. So that should have meant he could read Papa’s emotions too. Yet what Papa said never lined up with what Seven could feel.

Like when he’d seen Papa with that little girl. He knew there were other children here, though he never really saw much of them. He’d only gotten glances through windows or heard them somewhere distantly in the lab. But once he’d seen another kid clearly. It had been a little girl, only three or four years old. They’d been trying to lead her to some sort of room, but whatever it was, she’d been scared. Seven had felt the terror rolling off of her in waves, felt it itch beneath his own skin until he was fighting down his own instinct to flee as well.

Papa had watched impassively as the guards all but wrestled her into the room. He had smiled sympathetically, the way he did at Seven when he wasn’t passing the day’s tests, and had promised the little girl that whatever was happening was for her own good. But Papa didn’t _feel_ sad. He felt calm, and cold.

It wasn’t right. How could he look at that scared little girl and not feel the same terror Seven felt radiating off of her? How could he _do_ that to her? If he was capable of ignoring her distress, then did Papa feel anything for the girl at all?

But that couldn’t be the case. Because Papa said he loved them, and that all the tests they did were for their sakes. And if Papa didn’t care about this girl, didn’t love her, then that might have meant Papa didn’t love Seven either.

It seemed impossible at first. And yet Seven had all the proof he needed from his own powers.

And eventually, he began to consider that it wasn’t his abilities that were broken at all. Maybe, he thought after he’d been led back to his room, Papa had been the broken one all along.

~~~

Once considered, that sort of thought was not so easily discarded. It settled in the back of Seven’s mind, fed every time he struggled on a test, every time he was punished, and every time Papa claimed he did all this because he loved him. Still, it wasn’t like there was much that could be done about it, which only served to fuel the small embers of resentment that had begun to grow inside him.

He was twelve before anything came of that fire he’d been kindling. In the last year he had thought more and more of being out of the lab. He knew that the guards left, that there was a whole outside world and they talked about strange, foreign concepts like ‘department stores’ and ‘TV shows’ like they could be found all over out there. And Seven… _wanted_ that, more than anything. Maybe not those things specifically, but the faint senses of happiness or excitement felt when they were discussed made him wish desperately he could see them just once.

He’d always thought it would just be a temporary visit. Seven would be allowed out of the lab one day, maybe just for a few hours, and he could see whatever was out there. And he’d feel the sun and look up into the trees and go into those ‘stores’ he’d heard so much about, and at the end of the day he’d return and wait for his next visit. Eventually, he would come back.

He had never pictured the accident that had started everything. Papa had been frowning over test results, and the guards had been less lenient that usual that week. They pushed and pressed and scowled but whatever it was they wanted Seven to do, he couldn’t seem to do it right at all. Papa had frowned at him, then, and a guard had turned towards him and reached for his arm, and Seven could feel that the guard was just so _angry_ , and something instinctual inside him demanded he got away from the guard right that second.

Seven hadn’t meant to do anything really, and yet _something_ had happened. The guard had reached for his arm, but the air between them had shimmered and solidified in front of his eyes and the guard’s hand had simply bounced off as if there was a solid wall between them. The confusion, the _anger_ Seven felt coming from him after that was so much worse than what had been there before, and before he could stop it the shield was expanding itself, shoving out at Papa and the guard until the two of them were flung backwards against the walls.

Seven panicked. He’d hurt Papa. He’d never meant to hurt anyone, and he didn’t even know how he’d done it. But a tiny part of him had felt… happy. Happy he had escaped being hurt. Maybe even a little happy that instead of Papa’s usual cold detachment, he felt waves of shock and hot anger instead. Finally he’d gotten _some_ sort of response from him that felt genuine.

But ultimately, Seven’s fear won out as the men’s anger became overwhelming. He thought of little else other than avoiding the punishment he was sure to receive, not even the blood that dripped from his nose, so without thinking he scrambled past the fallen men and out of the room. He kept going, uncertain of where he was headed until he was practically upon the lab’s gates. There were men there who turned to him with open expressions of shock, clearly unprepared for his reckless escape from the scene. Seven didn’t think, just _reacted_ , and that same force that had protected him before swelled around him again.

Most of his awareness of the escape was lost in his panic. By the time his feet slowed with a sore ache and the breath in his lungs ran out, he was far past the edge of the lab. Actually, now that he looked around himself, he didn’t recognize anything about where he was at all.

Tall trees arced up above him, looking foreign from underneath since he’d only seen them before as far-away glances. He reached up a hand to brush one of the leaves, testing its waxy surface on the tips of his fingers.

He felt warm despite the thin cotton he was wearing. Warmer than the lab had ever been in his memories. And though the lab had been brighter by far, for the first time the light didn’t feel harsh. As Seven stood in the middle of the trees, alone, he felt somehow safer than he had ever felt before.

~~~

“Linda Jefferson called saying there was something moving around in the woods out back.”

Hopper rolled his eyes. “Do I _look_ like animal control?”

Flo leveled him with an unimpressed look. “She insisted it wasn’t an animal. Actually, she thought it looked like a kid.”

“Yeah. I’m sure there’s a kid wandering around the woods in the middle of the night, because that makes any damn sense at all.” Flo looked ready to protest again, so he waved her off with a tired flap of his hand. “Yeah, yeah, I’ll go check it out. Just don’t be too surprised when I’m back ten minutes from now because all that was out in the woods was a damn deer.”

Hopper took the truck out to the edge of the woods, pulling off-road just far enough that his headlights shone through the brush, giving him some light. Best case scenario, whatever had been creeping around at the tree line would get spooked by the light and take off. Worst case he’d attract a bear or something. Well, you won some, you lost some.

He idled there for a moment, figuring if he didn’t see anything in two minutes then there wasn’t anything to see. His philosophy worked wonders for about a minute and a half, but it seemed his luck hadn’t held out, as just as he was about to throw the truck back into drive something in the woods moved.

Well, it hadn’t looked big enough to be a bear, at least. Though it really didn’t seem big enough to be a deer either – at least not an adult, and it wasn’t the right time of year for fawns. And he was pretty damn sure no coyote moved like that.

But that left the pool of potential suspects pretty low. Which unfortunately meant that Hopper had to investigate further. If he got mauled out here, he was going to haunt the hell out of Flo in the afterlife.

He grabbed a flashlight from the glove box and headed into the woods, following the flash of movement he had seen before. He kept his steps slow and measured; the last thing he wanted to do was catch some animal by surprise. But despite his best efforts, it seemed like he’d done just that, as the bushes a few feet from him trembled as something shot past them.

Or, he realized as his eyes tracked the movement, darted _behind_ them. And he didn’t think there were too many animals that had the presence of mind to do something like that. He kept his movements slow as he approached, having no good goddamn idea what he was about to see when he stepped around the bush.

His flashlight cut a line of light through the underbrush, falling on a huddled form crouched low to the ground. Holy shit, was that a _kid_? The boy couldn’t have been older than twelve, though the hair shaved close to his skull might have been making him seem younger than he was. He looked kind of dirty, but if he’d been running around in the woods all night Hopper figured that made sense. What made less sense was the weird hospital gown the boy was wearing, or the wide, terrified look in his eyes when he stared up at Hopper.

He tried to tone down whatever seemed to intimidate the kid so much as he slowly lowered himself into a mirroring crouch. “Easy, kid.” He held his hands out in placation, though he did his best to keep the flashlight angled well enough so they could both be seen. The last thing he needed was to lose track of the kid if he spooked and decided to bolt. “What’s your name?” He got no response to that, only an uncertain look. “Alright… can you tell me where you live?”

That got him an answer, though it wasn’t the one he’d been hoping for. The boy shook his head adamantly, his frightened gaze edged with hardness. Yeesh. Maybe home life wasn’t so great. It wasn’t something anybody liked to think about their neighbors in a town like Hawkins, but it wasn’t unheard of either. “Did you… run away, kid?”

The boy sank into his shoulders. He nodded just once. Hopper sighed. He didn’t exactly want to drag the kid back to whatever he’d run from, but he couldn’t let him camp out in the woods either. Maybe if he could get some info out of the kid, he could at least see if he had any grounds to step in and call CPS. Though personally, he was of the mind that any child wandering the woods in the middle of the night was at the very least a product of neglect. Even if this whole situation was starting to skeeve him out. “Shit,” he whispered to himself, running a hand through his hair.

“S-scared?” the boy croaked through chapped lips, though he looked more confused than anything.

_He talks!_ Hopper mentally crowed. “You’re scared?”

The boy shook his head. He reached a finger out to point towards Hopper’s chest. “Scared,” he repeated. “Not mad?”

“I’m not scared-” he started to protest, before realizing he was arguing with a child. A strange, barely-verbal child who was freaking him the fuck out, yeah, but he wasn’t _scared_. “No, I’m not mad, kid.”

Something eased in the kid’s expression. Hopper felt his shoulder sag a little in relief. At least he was making some progress here. “Tell you what,” he tried, “if you come back to the station with me, you don’t have to go home tonight. Then you can tell me why you ran away, and we can figure out what’s next from there. How does that sound?”

The boy hesitated for a beat, but slowly ducked his head in a nod and rose to stand. _Thank God._ At least they could get out of this woods, and the kid wouldn’t be so much of a flight risk.

Hopper led the way back to the truck, glancing over at the boy as they went. “You sure you don’t got a name, kid?” he tried again, though he didn’t like his chances of getting a better answer.

The boy was quiet for a moment longer, but eventually he mumbled something that Hopper was _sure_ he’d heard wrong, because that was a _number_ , not a damn name. Of course – he must have said Steven. He gave a rough chuckle; he’d nearly embarrassed himself there. He really had to get his ears checked one of these days.

“Steven, huh? Okay. You got a last name, Steven?” Steven just shook his head. That was pretty standard for a runaway though, so Hopper didn’t press the issue. They kept walking in silence until they reached the truck. Hopper moved to open the passenger door for the kid, but Steven just stared at it from a few steps away, looking for all the world like he was staring down an alien ship.

Jesus, didn’t the kid know what a car was? “You getting in or what?” Steven’s eyes flicked over to him, then back to the open car door, before he abruptly made the decision to step closer and scramble up into the seat. He made no move to buckle himself in, so Hopper rolled his eyes and did it for him. Steven tensed as the buckle clicked into place, but while it caught his attention, there wasn’t much to be done about it; he’d rather have the kid uneasy than risk him going through the windshield.

Still, he thought as he got in the car himself and started to pull back onto the road, it was weird. They hadn’t gotten any missing children reports in that day. In fact, they hadn’t gotten any in Hawkins at all since-

The wheel slid in his slackened grip, and he nearly made good on that worry that he’d send one of them through the windshield. Luckily the road was dead at this time of night, and the seatbelt he’d insisted on seemed to hold until he got the wheel back firmly under control. 

No, he thought firmly. Nah. Couldn’t be, could it? That had been years ago. If the Harrington kid was still alive he’d be – well, he’d be about twelve now. Just like the kid sitting in his passenger seat.

Didn’t mean anything, of course. It’s not like Steven was the only twelve year old on the planet. Of course, he _had_ been the only one Hopper found in the woods, but hopefully the trip to the station was going to clear up that mystery.

~~~

If anything, getting to the station only left Hopper more confused. They’d taken two steps through the door – after a good deal of coaxing and cajoling on Hopper’s part – and Flo had all but swept Steven away at first sight. The poor kid had hardly managed to tell her his name before she was fussing about his clothes (or lack thereof, with only the hospital gown) and the smudges of dirt on his face and how skinny he was. On the last topic, she produced a doughnut from the box they’d had earlier that morning and insisted he eat something.

He took a tentative bite, then demolished the rest of the doughnut with a speed that really made Hopper concerned about this kid’s home life. If he hadn’t been already, of course. Flo taking the kid off his hands had let him look into any potential missing children, but like he had suspected, there hadn’t been any reports of kids going missing since back in ’69. And it seemed impossible, but all evidence seemed to suggest that _this kid_ was the missing Harrington.

Of course, the Harrington kid had been three when he vanished, so it was a little hard to tell if there were any visual similarities. They had a report that listed brown hair and eyes and a faded picture that sort of looked like a much younger version of the kid if he squinted, but it was hardly anything conclusive. It wasn’t like they’d had a reason to fingerprint a three year old, so that was out as a possible identifier. The kid’s name hadn’t been Steven either, but Hopper figured that if it had been a kidnapping, his name might have gotten changed somewhere down the line.

Still, looking at the kid now from the side as he smiled a little tentatively at Flo who was busy wiping the dirt from his cheeks, Hopper had to admit he could certainly see a resemblance with Richard Harrington. Not that he’d ever seen such an open expression on Richard’s face – the bastard probably wouldn’t have been caught dead looking anything but haughty – but damn if Steven didn’t resemble him anyway.

He heaved a quiet sigh. Shit. He’d really stepped in it now, hadn’t he? He buried his face in his hands, and didn’t come up for air until Flo’s quiet but unmistakably angry, “Hopper, come look at this” pulled him from his office.

He walked over to see she was holding one of Steven’s arms out, gesturing to a bit of dirt on the kid’s wrist as Steven looked distinctly uncomfortable but too polite to pull free. Hopper raised an eyebrow, but on second glance the dirt didn’t look like dirt at all. No, it looked like numbers… _007_. Did this twelve year old have a _tattoo?_

Hopper’s gut twisted. This was fucked up. Whatever was happening here, it was far beyond his pay grade. Abruptly he remembered what the name he’d given on the walk out of the woods. “When you told me your name… you really said Seven?”

To his surprise, the kid shook his head adamantly. He finally pulled his arm away, covering up the number with his other hand. “ _Steven_ ,” he insisted, looking a little desperate. “Not Seven anymore.”

“…Yeah, alright. I don’t know what the hell’s going on, but I guess I wouldn’t want to be Seven either.”

“Hop, what exactly is happening here?” Flo asked, her earlier enthusiasm for the kid looking a little dampened, colored by worry.

He shook his head. “You’re not gonna believe this. You remember back in ’69, when the Harrington kid went missing? I’m sure you saw the posters, or joined a search party or something.”

“You can’t mean-”

“I think… Steven might be our kid. I know it’s a long shot, believe me, but _look_ at him.” She did, likely noticing the same resemblance he had. “Unless we get a call tomorrow from somebody _else_ with a missing kid…”

Steven just looked between the two of them, lost. If he was being honest with himself, Hopper kind of hated to send the kid back to the Harringtons. It wasn’t like they were bad people or anything, but it had been almost ten years since they’d last seen their kid, and probably about as long since they’d entertained the idea that he might be _alive_. Plus he’d just looked at the missing person’s report, so the line about leaving the kid unattended in the backyard was still fresh in his mind.

But if it was their kid, and obviously they weren’t the ones who’d stuck Steven in a hospital gown and tattooed him, there wasn’t much reason Hopper realistically had to not tell them their son might be alive, let alone keep him from them. Even if it meant he had a long phone call ahead of him.

~~~

The truck slowed to a stop in the Harrington’s driveway. If you asked Hopper, no one in Hawkins really needed a twenty foot driveway, just like no one needed a heated pool or a perfectly manicured lawn in the middle of the summer. But no one really _did_ ask Hopper, much to his chagrin, so he didn’t say as much. Instead he glanced over at Steven and said, “End of the road, kid.”

Steven blinked back up at him. “Sad?” he asked, pointing towards Hopper.

Huh. Kid had a knack for seeing through him it seemed. As weird as the situation had been, Hopper was kind of sad to see the kid go. He’d taken a liking to Steven, and the kid had gotten more comfortable around Hopper as well, even if – or maybe _because_ \- he could read him like a book. But it wasn’t like he could keep the kid from his parents, not after he’d explained everything to Mrs. Harrington and listened to her break into sobs on the phone. So instead of a response to his question, Hopper just opened the car door, leaving Steven to do the same.

When Mrs. Harrington laid eyes on the kid there seemed to be no question in her mind about his parentage. She swept him up in a hug, already bursting into tears again, and Steven seemed a little overwhelmed but not particularly afraid, so Hopper accepted this was where his involvement ended. With a nod to both of them, he got back in the truck and drove off, firmly ignoring whatever crazy instinct inside him that was telling him to stay.


	3. Chapter 3

So much had changed for Steven in so little time. Only a few days ago he’d been with Papa in the lab, and yet it felt worlds away. The nice woman who owned this big house teared up every time she looked at him and radiated such a deep grief that Steven found it hard to focus around her, but no one had asked him to do any tests yet, so he figured it was a fair trade. She called him a weird name a few times, but he liked Steven and didn’t want to change again so soon, and eventually she stopped trying to get him to respond to the other name. The man seemed less sad, and sometimes even seemed annoyed when he considered Steven, so he hunched his shoulders and tried not to draw his attention too often if he could help it. He wasn’t like Papa, but there was something similar about the coldness inside him anyway.

Neither of them were happy when he used his powers like Papa had been. They looked confused, like the man who’d found him in the woods was, and sometimes a little afraid. It was strange going from always being asked to use his powers to trying _not_ to use them, a skill he’d never attempted before, and not one he was very good at yet. Instead, he had to pretend he didn’t notice when ‘Mom’ tried not to show her simmering anger or ‘Dad’ hid his exhaustion. If they wanted to lie about their emotions, Steven figured it was okay if he lied about noticing them too, even if sometimes he forgot and slipped up.

When they sent him to ‘school’ he learned the other kids felt the same way. So he did his best not to tear up when another kid got a skinned knee, or point out when their teacher got annoyed. It was working okay for him until a short, freckled boy came walking up to him on the playground, with a girl trailing behind him. Steve had been sitting in the sandbox with Mikey Simmons, watching the other boy poke at a grub that had wiggled between the two of them.

“Hey Tarzan,” the freckled boy sneered, which he didn’t understand because his name was Steven, wasn’t it? “And bug boy. Look Carol, the two weirdos found each other.” He huffed dismissively, his eyes scanning over the two of them. “What a bunch of fags.”

Steve didn’t know what ‘fags’ meant, but he knew what ‘weirdos’ meant. It made him shrink into his hunched shoulders like he could escape the boy's stare. He _hated_ being a weirdo. It reminded him too much of cold white walls, and no other kids, and disapproving looks from Papa. It reminded him of the dumb thoughts he couldn’t get out of his head when he looked at other people, the thoughts no one else seemed to have, and the way Papa had looked at him when he’d sent those guards flying.

He thought about trying to do that shield that had protected him a while ago, but he hadn’t attempted it since that day. He didn’t know if he could, and he didn’t know if the other kids would like that either or if it’d just make him an even bigger weirdo, so he forced the feeling back down and settled for tugging uncomfortably at the edge of his long sleeves. He didn’t mean to, but he picked up on the other boy’s emotions all at once; despite his looks, he was nervous, and kept darting glances to the girl he was with like he was looking for her approval.

He figured the boy probably wouldn’t appreciate looking bad in front of his friend. But Steven didn’t want to be a _weirdo_ either. He hated it more than anything else. He probably hated it more than Mikey did, he figured. At least _he_ hadn’t grown up in the lab. If anyone was a weirdo, it was _him_.

“’M not a fag,” he mumbled, though the boy seemed unconvinced. He tried emulating the boy’s earlier tone, letting disdain and venom creep into his voice and turning to regard Mikey the same way the other boy had looked at them earlier. “Not like Mikey.”

Mikey’s eyes shot to him, wide and hurt, and before he could stop himself Steven felt Mikey’s confusion and sadness. He shoved it down and ignored it, like he’d been practicing. “He likes _bugs_ ,” Steven said like it was brand new information, “and bugs are gross.” Decisively, he lifted up his shoe and, before Mikey could protest, squished the grub under his heel. Tears sprung to Mikey’s eyes, but Steven wasn’t paying attention to him; he was looking at the freckled boy, who was smiling back at him.

“You’re pretty okay,” the boy decided with a shrug. “I’m Tommy, and this is Carol.” He gestured to the girl, who lifted her hand in the air and let it drop to her side again.

“Steven,” he said, returning the gesture and hoping he was doing it right.

Tommy seemed to find it good enough. “You don’t wanna get caught around weirdos like bug boy. Just hang with us, Steve.”

And just like that, he’d been renamed again. Seven to Steven to Steve. With each instance, he felt further away from that cold lab. So he didn’t try to correct Tommy, not even when he introduced him to the other kids with his new name. If Tommy wanted him to be Steve, then he figured he could be Steve.

~~~

The day on the playground wasn’t the last time Steve heard someone use the word fag, and it wasn’t the last time he’d used it himself either. But it hadn’t really _meant_ anything until he’d heard Dad (not Papa) say it a few years later.

He and Mom had just come home from a weekend business trip. They’d been going on those more often recently. At first he wished they didn’t, that they would have stayed with him instead so he could be sure that the men from the lab wouldn’t come and take him away again. But after a few weekends, he had gotten used to shuffling around the house alone. He’d even had Tommy and Carol come over when Mom and Dad had said no one was allowed over without them in the house, and his friends had seemed to really like it. They said they wished their parents would go away every weekend. So Steve told himself that if that’s what normal kids wanted, then it was what he wanted too.

They tried their best, Steve knew. They just didn’t know what to do with him. They’d spent so long without a kid that having one now felt wrong. Especially one with his _issues_. Or at least that’s what Steve had overheard Mom saying on the phone once.

Steve had done his best to fix those issues. He’d even stopped mentioning when his powers told him an emotion that didn’t make sense with what someone was saying. It didn’t seem like it was enough though. They kept going on business trips, and the trips seemed to last longer and longer every time. It was okay though. Sometimes when they came home, they would do something fun, like take Steve out for ice cream.

The boy behind the counter at the ice cream parlor had only been a few years older than Steve. He had brown hair, just like Steve’s, but his was long enough that it peeked out of the bottom of the baseball cap he was wearing and flopped into his face. When he handed Steve his ice cream cone he gave him a wide smile that made Steve’s stomach twist a little, but not in the bad way.

Steve followed his parents to a booth, but he kept looking over at the older boy. He didn’t really know why. There was just something nice about looking at him. Something compelling.

Dad’s voice startled him back to attention. “What are you staring at?” He followed Steve’s gaze, before he could redirect it, back to the boy behind the counter.

Something dark entered his Dad’s tone. “Jesus. You’re not a fucking fag, are you?” It was barely audible, meant only for Steve and not to be overheard by any of the other families seated at the nearby tables. Steve flinched. He hadn’t been called that since the day he’d met Tommy, and he hadn’t known what it meant, but now he thought he did.

It wasn’t Dad’s words that were the worst part though. It was what Steve felt in Dad’s emotions. Horrible, overwhelming disgust, and a terrible anger that made Steve flex a fist in his lap before he got his response under control. He’d felt emotions overwhelm him before, when Mom drank too much and cried so hard Steve teared up from all the way in his room, or when Dad got angry and started yelling and throwing things. It had been too much back then, and Steve had hoped for a way to turn his damn powers _off_.

But those times had been nothing compared to this. The pit of disgust that welled up inside of him felt like a black hole, and if the feeling had started building like a cresting wave in his father then it had multiplied, swelled to a breaking point inside of Steve.

“N-no,” he managed, and very firmly did not look at anything other than his ice cream for the rest of the time they were in the shop.

He started figuring out how to block out his powers after that. He didn’t want to feel that again, and it wasn’t like he needed to use them to fit in at school anymore anyway. Tommy and Carol had shown him the ropes, and he got by pretty well by copying the two of them. Besides, it was better not to know how kids like Mikey Simmons felt. They were weirdos anyway. And Steve was perfectly normal, so he didn’t care what any weirdos thought.

So he shut his powers up in a mental box, and resolved that no matter what, he was never going to touch them again. He was going to leave the lab behind. And he shut away the weird feelings in his stomach when he looked at boys too. Because that wasn’t normal.

Steve Harrington was going to be entirely, completely _normal_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Steve: I’m normal  
> Suspiciously John Mulaney-sounding voice over: He said, you know, like a liar
> 
> Pour one out for Mikey’s grub :( You will be missed, little guy


	4. Chapter 4

When the lab finally intruded on Steve’s life again, he didn’t even notice. He’d been far too wrapped up in the walking storm that was Nancy Wheeler.

Nancy was smart and beautiful and unbelievably kind, practically the antithesis to everything Steve was. She smiled at him and the corners of her eyes crinkled and Steve felt like he was over the goddamn moon. And she was perfectly, indisputably _normal_. She was so normal it made Carol roll her eyes in exasperation. Steve chased after that normalcy like a moth to a flame, might have done so even if he hadn’t liked who Nancy turned out to be once he got to know her, but he did like her and she liked him too so really he figured he’d completely lucked out for once.

He even laughed when Nancy pointed insistently at some math equation that didn’t make a damn bit of sense to Steve, trying to explain something that he knew was only going to fly right over his head. She smiled at him, and when she rolled her eyes in amusement at his total cluelessness and said, “You’re an idiot, Steve Harrington,” he tried to let it feel like the playful teasing it was probably supposed to be. He’d long since learned not to get so sensitive over having his own idiocy pointed out – it wasn’t like he was winning a Nobel Prize anytime soon, and it wasn’t like anybody knew what he’d been up to before the age of twelve instead of learning basic reading and math. He’d resigned himself to always playing catch-up a long time ago. So he just smiled and kissed Nancy and let himself bask in how amazingly lucky he had gotten.

Except that was about when everything had started to fall apart. Jonathan Byers’ brother disappeared, and so did Nancy’s friend Barb, from his own party. And then Nicole started talking about some pictures Jonathan had taken of the same night, pictures of him and Nancy.

He thumbed through Jonathan’s pictures, raising an eyebrow at the sheer creep factor on display and ignoring his protests, but stopped dead when he caught sight of the last one in his stack. It had been taken when they’d been in the pool, a close shot of his arms around Nancy. But the water had weighed down the long sleeves of his shirt and washed off the concealer that usually kept the dark ink scrawled across the soft skin of his wrist hidden, leaving it on full display in grainy black and white.

Had Jonathan had time to look at the picture? No, probably not; he’d only just developed them when Nicole had spotted them, and she’d wasted no time in reporting back about them. Really, the number was hardly visible. If you didn’t know what you were looking at, it would have probably been hard to tell it was a number at all. But it wasn’t a chance Steve could take. Not when a single photo taken by fucking Jonathan Byers could have sent his whole precariously balanced life crashing to the ground.

So he tore the other photos into pieces, and rained them down on the blacktop to blow away in the wind, and smashed Jonathan’s camera for good measure so he wouldn’t have to worry about any more pictures getting taken. But he took the shredded remains of _that_ photo and slipped them into the pocket of his jacket, and resolved to burn them or something when he got home.

Things only went further off the rails from there. There was seeing Jonathan in Nancy’s room after Nancy had blown him off, and letting Tommy talk him into that dumb shit at the movie theater, and getting his face beat in by Jonathan in the next alley over. And somehow, that had changed everything. Because Steve wasn’t a big enough idiot to not know when he’d been a real piece of work. And even though he’d blocked out any emotion reading a long time ago, he still felt Jonathan’s hurt and anger when he’d mentioned his brother right before their fight, pulsing and bright and catching him so off guard he hadn’t been prepared for Jonathan’s first punch. And in the face of that kind of emotion, listening to Tommy and Carol talk about Jonathan like he’d killed his little brother and stuffed his body in the woods somewhere filled him with a self-disgust he hadn’t felt in a very long time.

So he’d told Tommy to kiss his ass, and decided if he was going to fix his fuck up, he should probably start with Jonathan. He drove over to the Byers’ place, trying to remember what the hell a genuine apology sounded like, but as it turned out Jonathan and Nancy had been a little busy and didn’t have much time for what would have probably been a sorry excuse for an apology anyway because there was a fucking _faceless monster_ coming through the wall.

Considering the circumstances, he was too piss-scared in that moment to even _think_ of using his powers, staring down some creepy fucking sci-fi monster with petals for a head and jaws filled to the brim with serrated teeth, when he’d just come to clear the air with Jonathan. Before he could even process what the fuck had just happened he was swinging a nail-covered baseball bat at it for dear life and amazingly, not once did it ever cross his mind that he had a much better method of defense, not until the thing had gone up in flames in the middle of the Byers’ hallway.

Later, Nancy explained just what the hell he’d stumbled into, at least to the extent that she knew. Which really wasn’t much – a plan to find Jonathan’s missing brother, something about another dimension, and the monster that had apparently taken Barb right in his own backyard. He shuddered at the idea. A month went by before he could even look at that damn pool without picturing that _thing_ lurking at the edge of the woods.

But miraculously, things started to go back to normal after that. Hawkins had a weird tendency for ignoring any oddities that couldn’t be easily explained it seemed, and no one knew that better than Steve himself. But it was weird to watch it happen from this perspective. It was weird to watch his relationship with Nancy patch itself back up, and to quietly make amends with Jonathan, and to try and forget he’d seen a real life demon coming through the walls of the Byers’ house.

But if there was one thing Steve was good at, it was pretending everything about his life was normal. He figured this was just one more thing to add to the pile of ‘shit to never think about or talk about again.’ After all, it wasn’t like the nightmares were anything new either.

~~~

He might have continued on in blissful ignorance had it not been for the kids’ complete inability to keep a secret.

He’d come over just to take Nancy out to dinner, but she’d needed a few more minutes to get ready, which somehow resulted in her weird little brother and his geeky friends regaling him with the extended plot of their last equally weird nerd game.

Steve had faded in and out of paying attention as they talked about 20 letter D’s and fireball whiskey or something, wishing he’d just waited for Nancy in the car. That was, until her brother Mike had said, “And then Dustin tried to throw the goblins off the board like he had Eleven’s mind powers or something and-”

Steve froze, and before he could think of anything else he interrupted Mike’s spiel with an abrupt, “Did you say Eleven?”

Mike faltered, looking caught out, and looked at his friends for help, but they seemed similarly unsure of what to say. “Uh… I meant Eleanor?” Mike tried after a beat, but Steve didn’t need any stupid powers to know _that_ was a damn lie.

It could have been a coincidence, of course. Maybe people really did go around naming their kids numbers these days – hell, it’s not like _Steve_ would know. And maybe those kids also sometimes had “mind powers.” That wasn’t so strange, right? It could totally happen.

But he knew that there had been more kids at that damn lab than just himself. He remembered seeing a little girl, quickly shuffled past him. He knew what his number seven implied.

Steve rubbed his thumb subconsciously against the skin of his wrist. “No, you definitely said _Eleven_ ,” he pressed, carefully restraining himself from grabbing Nancy’s brother by the shoulders and shaking some sense into him.

The curly haired kid, Dusty or Dustin or whatever, gave an exaggerated snort and a roll of his eyes. “Dude, you really _are_ an idiot. He said Eleanor! What kind of a name is Eleven anyway?”

And, well. Steve could answer that question, but it wasn’t an answer he was going to give to a bunch of twelve year olds. And, as Mike told him next, looking more than a little morose, “Eleanor” was gone now anyway. Steve didn’t know if _gone_ meant left or dead or what, but he couldn’t push without revealing some real uncomfortable truths to a bunch of pre-teens. And even though he’d _considered_ that after what they’d done facing down that monster Nancy might understand if he explained, he hadn’t gotten the nerve to tell her yet, let alone these brats.

So he forced himself to relax back into the couch, and he scoffed and rolled his eyes and said “Whatever losers” and acted like he very much definitely did not care about the girl named Eleven. 

It didn’t matter anyway. By the time he’d found out there was a girl who could push stuff around with her mind, she was already gone. And Steve was right back where he started.

~~

It wasn’t until much later that he’d seen the newspaper article. It had been casually discarded on the cheap Formica table of the 24 hour diner, left behind by some careless, freshly caffeinated reader. _Research scientist Dr. Martin Brenner, age 58_. Papa’s face stared up at him printed in cheap black and white ink, blurred and marked by a coffee ring. Steve stared at his face, and the word _dead_ that stared mockingly up at him from the paper, and for once couldn’t figure out how to identify the emotions he was feeling.


	5. Chapter 5

He was going to tell Nancy. He really was. Steve had every intention of getting up the courage to wipe off the concealer on his arm, show her the number, explain what it meant. Hell, maybe he could go looking for an old newspaper while he was at it, he was sure the library must have had some from 1969 though he’d never run the risk of going looking for them before.

But then there had been that disastrous Halloween party, and Nancy had spat the word _bullshit_ at him like she knew just how accurate it really was, and any plans to tell her the truth had fallen through in an instant.

And sure, he got that Nancy wasn’t as practiced as he was at pretending like everything was okay when it was far from it. In fact, if _King Steve_ had ever really been king of anything, it was probably king of lying to himself. So he would have understood if she’d just meant lying about Barb’s death was too much for her.

He couldn’t risk it though, no matter how hard Nancy pressed about telling Barb’s parents the truth. If the lab found out he’d been involved in the secret getting out… He’d long since assumed the lab had always known who he was. He’d gone back to the same house they’d stolen him from, for God’s sake. But the same kid going missing a second time was more likely to draw unwanted attention, so Steve figured that was why they’d left him alone. Or hell, maybe with Eleven and whoever had come in between, they’d decided they didn’t need him anymore after all.

But he knew their truce was tenuous at best. If the lab had any reason to think he might expose what they’d done… well, it might be too suspicious to kidnap the same kid twice, but it was hardly suspicious at all if that kid just turned up dead one day. They could probably fake it too – they’d used that body double they fished out of the quarry for Will. He doubted his own parents would have much reason to check if he was full of stuffing too.

Or maybe they’d just tie up his loose end. He didn’t know which option was worse really. Though maybe he did. A part of him had decided long ago that he’d rather die than go back to that awful place.

So when Nancy started calling him _bullshit,_ well, when it came to lying about Barb and pretending he was just an idiot teenager, maybe she was right.

But damn it, when he’d told Nancy he loved her he’d _meant_ it. He’d been more honest than he’d ever been before in his entire life. And to think that she’d said it back to him and not meant the same, to think that as much as he wanted to deny it he couldn’t _feel_ any love coming from her when she looked at him… 

Which was all not to even mention the walking problem that was Billy Hargrove.

Billy, who had swung into the school parking lot in his loud, dumb Camaro, already stomping around like he owned the place day one. Billy, who made all the Hawkins girls fawn after him in his wake. Billy, who seemed to have an aversion to pants in his own size.

Not that Steve had noticed that last one, of course.

All of those things were frustrating enough on their own, but they weren’t what made Billy such a problem. No, that was the way Billy had taken one look at him and decided that there was no greater task on all of God’s green earth than annoying the ever living fuck out of Steve.

Tactics ranged from giving Steve yet another bruise to ice after basketball, to sneering _pretty boy_ at him like it was going out of style, to staring at him throughout all of second period looking three minutes away from trying to eat him alive. Frankly, Steve had no idea what his game was. Intimidation, he got. Roughhousing on the court, he got. Burning a hole through the back of his head when they were both supposed to be taking a pop quiz on _Catcher in the Rye?_ Yeah, that one didn’t make as much sense to him.

Though he had to appreciate his teacher’s timing with making him read a story about a kid who runs around calling everyone else a “phony” while the memories of the lovely Halloween party were still freshly healing scars. It was good to know fate still had it out to kick him in the balls whenever it could. Well, it had company now.

Anyway. He was getting real tired of Billy’s shit. Especially when Billy’s shit involved fucking with him in the middle of the locker room after everyone else had conveniently already left.

“Harrington,” he teased in his stupidly gravelly voice, “what’s got your panties in a twist today, huh? What’s the matter, you not interested in being a team player anymore?”

Steve rolled his eyes. No, he was most definitely not interested in being a “team player” with Billy Hargrove. “Team player, huh? Tell that to the guy who’d rather fuck with his teammates than actually score any points.”

Billy leaned himself against the locker next to the one Steve currently had open, easy and lazy, with his neck pulled back like he was baring his throat. “Aw Steve, you know you’re the only one I fuck with. Not like Nancy though, huh? Saw her hanging around that Byers freak.” His lips quirked up in a grin, tongue poking out between his bared teeth.

Steve tried to stifle the urge to punch him. “Fuck you man.” It was a weak comeback at best, but he was exhausted. The last thing he wanted to hear about was Nancy hanging out with Jonathan, and the last _person_ he wanted to hear it from was Billy.

Billy took the rebuke with his usual amounts of shits given, which was to say none. “Right, guy like you, you probably have droves of girls on your heels, huh pretty boy? Plenty of bitches in the sea, as I like to say. ‘Course, plenty of guys out there for Nancy to fuck too.”

Steve gritted his teeth. “Fuck. You,” he repeated, because he knew Nancy wouldn’t do that shit to him, and it wasn’t worth getting himself pissed off at Billy for something he knew to be a lie.

Billy only laughed, undeterred. “Not a chance.” He leaned in close, until Steve could make out his individual eyelashes, and did he wear mascara? “Unless you like that sort of thing, Harrington.” And – what the fuck was that supposed to mean? Because there was no way he was seriously even _jokingly_ suggesting…

Billy sneered. He projected disgust, but there was something that didn’t match just underneath the surface. Even if Steve didn’t use his powers anymore, years of having them had made him pretty damn good at picking up on emotions the old fashioned way. And there was something off about the look Billy gave him. Something hurt and hungry and absolutely terrified. Something familiar. It almost, almost, made Steve want to tear down the mental walls he’d put up around his powers and reach out with them purposefully for the first time since he’d been 14 and he’d decided normal kids didn’t do that.

But then Billy shoved him with a hand against his chest until his back hit the cold metal of the lockers and whatever had been there was gone, Billy taking it with him as he swaggered out of the gym and left Steve behind to rub the ache out of his new bruise. Jesus Christ. Whatever he thought he saw, it must not have been there at all, Steve decided. Because he’d been a dick, he knew what it was like to call kids queer and fag and know that there was something swimming inside you that you’d decided never to acknowledge again, but he’d never been _that_ much of an asshole.

He resolved to stay away from Billy when he could. Not that Billy seemed intent on offering him that option, but it was worth a shot. No need to confuse himself even further with what exactly he was trying to get out of deliberately pissing Steve off.

~~~

His resolution did not last nearly as long as he would have liked. Worse, it was his own damn fault the plan failed. He hadn’t exactly been up for partying the last few days, but he’d hardly seen Nancy at all in the wake of their fight and he couldn’t get thoughts of the lab out of his head no matter what he did, so a few hours he could have spent half-conscious, steadily working his way up to blackout drunk, sounded like an amazing idea for once.

To his credit, he’d been well on his way to accomplishing exactly what he’d set out to do before he’d gotten sidetracked. Said sidetrack happened about an hour into the party when he’d snagged a bottle and gone looking for somewhere he could probably pass out undisturbed, and came in the form of one extremely plastered Billy Hargrove laying on his back, shirtless, alone, and splayed out across Rachel Redman’s parents’ bed.

He should have kept walking. He was sure that when a normal guy saw another dude laying on the bed shirtless they absolutely did not stop to gawk – not that he was _gawking_ , of course. There was probably some other unoccupied room he could have taken refuge in. Hell, he probably should have gone home and just drank until the background noise of the TV started to resemble someone else living in that big, empty house that reminded him far too much of the sterile, echoey walls of the lab. 

Whatever he should have done, it was definitely not enter the damn bedroom.

But as luck would have it, Steve was a goddamn idiot, and getting halfway to drunk had loosened the usually tight wall he kept his powers locked behind and they’d started to seep through the weak spots. Even from the hallway he could feel discomfort and self-disgust coming off of Billy in waves. And because he had no self-preservation instinct, apparently, he’d stepped into the room before he’d been aware of his own feet.

It took Billy a few seconds to even notice Steve’s presence. If he hadn’t already known Billy was shitfaced, that would have been enough to tip him off; most days he could have sworn Billy had some sort of homing device when it came to him, despite his best efforts to fly under the radar. This time, however, Billy blinked blurrily at him, face scrunching a little in drunken confusion, before getting an arm under himself so he could at least make an attempt at propping himself up.

“Th’fuck are you lookin’ at, pretty boy?” he slurred, though it lacked its usual punch. “See something you like?” The hand that wasn’t supporting his upper body flung itself out in a way that was probably supposed to indicate himself but ended up gesturing primarily to the bedside lamp.

Even without his freaky powers Steve would have known Billy wasn’t exactly prepared for a fight, so he didn’t bother getting worked up about the dig. “Don’t flatter yourself. Just making sure you didn’t choke to death on your own vomit.”

“Charming,” Billy grunted, resting his hand back behind his head. The new pose left him at an angle commonly seen in things Steve had absolutely _no_ desire to connect Billy Hargrove to in his mind. Really. He very carefully did not find his eyes drawn to the bunching muscles in Billy’s arm that effortlessly supported his weight or the ridiculous six-pack or the faint pattern of mottled bruises scattered across Billy’s lower torso. Wait, what was that last one?

He blinked, but his vision didn’t change. The dark marks stood out in harsh contrast to otherwise smooth tan skin. Something dumb about picking fights was on the tip of his tongue, but he shut his trap when he saw they looked bad, and they looked fresh. Instead, he drew closer thoughtlessly. He reached out to his own wrist, his thumb rubbing light circles over where his number was hidden.

Billy didn’t say anything, but he’d obviously noticed what had drawn Steve’s attention; he’d gone ramrod straight when Steve moved closer, tense and flighty despite the casual nature he was projecting. Something like fear nudged against the cracks in the wall keeping Steve’s powers at bay, which he’d definitely never expected to feel from Billy of all people. 

Left with the burden of being the one to break the silence, he aimed for something that wouldn’t lead to him getting decked in the face. “You want some ice for that?” he tried, already wincing a little in preparation for Billy’s response.

To his surprise, Billy only shook his head and mumbled, “Only one kind of medicine I need,” holding out his hand for the bottle Steve had nearly forgotten he was carrying. And yeah, whatever else went on between the two of them during school hours, Steve could understand _that_ sentiment just fine. So he obligingly passed the bottle over, but he sat himself down on the edge of the bed with the clear implication that he was only loaning it, not giving it up entirely. He still hadn’t given up on his plan to find somewhere quiet to black out tonight.

For his part, Billy didn’t protest his continued presence. Instead, he actually swung his legs up and over the side of the bed, sitting the rest of the way up but leaning his side against the headboard so the two of them were facing the same direction. Steve listened rather than watched as he uncapped the bottle, took a sip, and wordlessly handed it back for Steve to do the same.

They stayed like that for a few minutes, or maybe only a few seconds that seemed to drag on forever, mirroring each other’s poses and listening to the muffled thump of music and shouting voices through the wall. Eventually, Steve said, “Those bruises look nasty man.”

He’d hoped he’d built up enough good will to get a real response, but when Billy glanced sideways at him his eyes were narrowed. “Mind your own business,” he snapped, tone laced with venom.

Steve rolled his eyes, not particularly intimidated by a guy who was either unwilling or incapable of sitting up without the use of the headboard for support. “Whatever, Hargrove. Don’t say I didn’t try to be nice.”

Billy huffed derisively, snagging the bottle back out of his hands. “You ever heard of privacy, Harrington?” And wasn’t _that_ ironic. It seemed no matter what Steve did, he’d end up arguing with _someone_ about keeping secrets. Not that he expected Billy to be up front about anything, let alone perceived weaknesses.

But yeah, Steve had his own concerns about privacy. He had shit he’d resolved never to mention to anyone, shit he knew he’d get killed for saying, shit Billy wouldn’t have fucking dreamed of in a million years. Labs and numbers and flower petals that opened to reveal rows of teeth. Boys behind counters serving ice cream and the harsh sound of his dad’s voice around harsher consonants. “Like you’re the only one in this town with a secret.”

Billy outright sneered at him then, his lips curling backwards to reveal a smile that was all teeth. “As if some perfect pretty boy like you has anything to hide.”

“ _Perfect?_ ” he repeated, electing to ignore the ‘pretty boy’ once again. “Hardly.”

“Right, sorry, of course,” Billy said sarcastically. “’Cause clearly trust fund Steve has so much to bitch about. Cry me a fuckin’ river.”

“You’re a real dick, you know that, Hargrove?” Steve rolled his eyes. “The fuck do you know anyway?”

“What I know,” Billy said, jabbing a finger in Steve’s direction that landed somewhere around the center of his chest, “is that _King Steve_ gets to live the easy life while some of us have real fuckin’ problems.” His eyes darkened a little but his finger didn’t move. The point of contact drew Steve’s focus, but he didn’t miss Billy’s added, likely alcohol-induced, “Some of us spend our whole lives pretending we don’t.”

Steve huffed a dark laugh, lacking any actual enjoyment. “You really think _King Steve_ isn’t just some shitty act? Something I showboat around because it’s better than the alternative? Nance said I was bullshit, and you know what? She was right. Think what you want, Hargrove, but you don’t really know shit about me. If you knew… it’d change the way every person in town looked at me.”

“Oh? Enlighten me, then. What does the great Steve Harrington have to hide?” Billy’s tone had gone taunting, but it was only surface level. He was staring intently now, obviously listening, waiting for Steve’s answer. He had a half-second of wild, stupid thought where he thought if he just _said_ it, just stopped pretending for once in his damn life, that maybe Billy would get it. Maybe, through whatever tenuous bond the shared drunkenness had led them to forge, it wouldn’t have completely blown up in his face.

But it was a stupid thought, barely worth entertaining. He would have had to have been a real Class A idiot to trust Billy Hargrove with anything like that and not expect it to be thrown back in his face. Even if the look Billy was fixing him with made him think that there was something more to this conversation, some second layer that only Billy seemed to know they were talking about that had kept him from decking Steve and storming out a long time ago.

Finally, Steve said, “That’s all Hawkins is. We’re all just hiding shit, whether it’s who’s fucking who, or who had a screaming match in public last week, or what other kid is next in line to just fucking disappear someday. And everyone’s either blissfully unaware or so committed to not acknowledging anything’s wrong that they can’t see what’s right in front of them. Like slapping concealer on a ta- a bruise and acting like just because you can’t see it, it’s not there.” He rubbed again at his wrist, feeling the faint raised bumps of the tattoo that he’d never really escape no matter what he did.

Billy was just staring at him like Steve had answered a question he hadn’t known how to ask. He heaved a sigh, unsure if his sudden exhaustion was a result of the drinks or if it had been a long time coming. “We’re all just fuckin’… pretending to be normal, y’know?” Steve said into the silence that followed his words.

Billy eyed him for a moment longer, but eventually shrugged and nodded, seeming unwilling to push his original question further. Steve thought that might have been the end of it, but after a beat Billy mumbled, “This town fucking sucks, huh Harrington?”

Steve surprised himself with his short laugh. “Hey, I’ll drink to that, man.” Billy obligingly passed the bottle back over after lifting it in a mock-toast, and they sat like that for a while, both of them getting steadily drunker as they lapsed back into occasional comments about shit that didn’t matter.

It was the first time Steve really thought of Billy as a _person_ , someone who had reasons for shit he did and didn’t just exist as some antagonizing force at the peripheral of his life. Someone who had his own bruises and secrets to hide, who was doing his own performance just like Steve was, and someone that, when away from the ever-present observation of the school and removed of the burdens of sobriety, could actually hold a conversation instead of just shoving Steve’s shoulder into the nearest hard surface.

And it was sort of funny, Steve thought, funny in a sad way, that the only way they could share this kind of camaraderie was when they were both three sheets to the wind. It wouldn’t last. He knew that already; when they both went back to school, and they saw each other in the hallway, tonight wouldn’t matter. It would be back to the same shit.

Nevertheless, Steve let himself enjoy it while he could. He didn’t think about tomorrow when he slumped unsteadily and Billy leaned against his side so they were propping each other up. He didn’t think about the likelihood of getting punched the next time he saw Billy when he said something that surprised a laugh out of Billy and Steve felt the little shaking motions of his shoulders. He didn’t think about his fight with Nancy when Billy’s hand rested casually against his thigh.

He _did_ think about what the hell they were doing. Because this wasn’t how this was supposed to go. He and Billy were enemies, or rivals, or even just two assholes in a dick measuring competition. They didn’t hang out, they didn’t get drunk together, and they _certainly_ didn’t do whatever the fuck this was. And yet, Steve couldn’t bring himself to protest it. It felt easy in a way nothing had lately, maybe never had, and he wasn’t going to be the one to shatter the moment.

But like he’d predicted, it wasn’t going to last. Billy’s gaze dropped to his hand, apparently fully registering its position for the first time, and a shadow darkened his face. Steve almost thought to reach out and read whatever emotions he was feeling, but before he could Billy had risen from the bed. He snatched the bottle and what remained of its contents before wordlessly shouldering the door open and presumably heading back into the thick of the party.

Steve blinked curiously at his departure, but it held no answers. Maybe Billy had just realized what he had – that it was only a matter of times before things went right back to how they had been – and decided that sooner was better than later. Whatever his reasons, Steve decided he was far too tired and drunk to try to figure out what the fuck just happened. Maybe it was time he headed home himself, while he still had enough presence of mind to leave Tylenol out for the next morning.

He wasn’t looking forward to what the next day would bring, in more ways than one.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Something something intricate rituals something something
> 
> Aka Steve and Billy get Gay at a party


	6. Chapter 6

He was going to apologize to Nancy. Really. After he’d dealt with his pounding headache and decided to firmly ignore whatever the fuck last night had been about (except maybe the part where he was so incredibly tired about keeping secrets about everything), Steve had gotten right in the car. He’d brought flowers and everything. He’d had a whole speech planned – he was a paranoid bastard, and he knew it sucked to keep things secret, and Nancy this might be hard to believe but actually I have something to tell you and do you remember your parents ever saying anything about a kid going missing when you were little?

So yeah, he was going to tell her everything. And then Dustin had cut him off and dragged him down into his creepy storm cellar and he’d found that nasty pile of shed skin and they’d ended up in a junkyard laying down a meat trail for some sort of mini-Demogorgon. It had hardly been a year and he was already fighting monsters again. Great. The picture of normal, really.

“So, just so we’re clear,” he said, trying not to grimace each time he tossed another chunk of meat behind the two of them, “you found some shitty lizard thing-”

“A _scientific discovery_ ,” Dustin interjected, which he ignored.

“-a stupid lizard from the Upside Down, and you decided to keep it until it got loose and ate your cat?”

Dustin huffed like it was Steve who’d gotten them into this mess. “I didn’t _know_ Dart was from the Upside Down when I adopted him!”

“Dude. Adopted?” Steve asked, incredulous. Dustin just grumbled something under his breath. 

How the hell had he gotten himself into this mess? Fine, he didn’t want the little idiot running off and getting himself eaten, and sure, he didn’t want anything to do with the Upside Down running free in Hawkins again, but why did it have to be _him_ who went chasing after monsters armed only with a spiked bat?

“Alright fine, you adopted the hell lizard, whatever. What exactly is your end game here? We lead this thing to the scrapyard and then what, get ourselves eaten?”

“No, then _you_ are gonna kill it with that bat.”

“We’re so fucked,” Steve muttered under his breath. He was going to die, and all he’d have for company in his final moments would be Dustin Henderson.

Or apparently not, he found out as they reached the junkyard and saw not one but two of his nerd friends waiting for them, and he wasn’t positive but he was pretty sure he’d never seen the girl before. Not that he was complaining about her being here; out of the three of them, the random girl – Max, apparently - was the only one helping him drag spare sheets of metal to the bus to use for reinforcements, so she was already a hell of an improvement.

It took some time, but eventually the trap was set; now they only had to wait for Dustin’s weird pet to show up. Or it would have been all they had to do, if the damn lizard had taken the bait. Instead, it just lurked at the edge of the junkyard, like it was waiting for something.

Shit. What the hell was it doing? “Maybe he’s not hungry,” Dustin tried, though it didn’t sound much like he believed it.

“…Maybe he’s sick of cow.” He shoved the lighter towards Dustin and picked up the bat, heading for the bus doors.

“Steve? Steve, what are you doing?”

 _Something stupid,_ Steve thought. But they had to deal with this thing while it was still here. Who knew where it might have gone next if they didn’t? And much as he didn’t want to be risking his own life for these little weirdos, he couldn’t really let them endanger themselves either. So, fine. He was going to go out there, and he was going to kill that sonofabitch.

Maybe his plan would have worked, if “Dart” hadn’t been some unholy combination of that monster from last year and something that looked much more animalistic. What the hell had Dustin called it before – a Demodog? His grip on the bat tightened seeing those familiar flower petals. If it hadn’t been for Lucas’ shout, he wouldn’t have noticed the second one sneaking up on him until it was too late.

He swung wildly with the bat, feeling it meet resistance and keep going, as he stumbled backwards towards the relative safety of the bus. And shit, that was definitely another one, and this had been a _bad_ plan. 

The first Demodog crept closer, and Steve felt something fizzle out and die on his fingertips. _Fuck._ Not now, he had three pairs of little eyes staring at him and he knew for a fact _all_ of them were terrible at keeping secrets, and this was not the way he had been picturing his freaky powers getting revealed. In fact, he would have much preferred no one found out about them at all. But was he going to have much of a choice? If he couldn’t fend off the Demodogs with his spiked bat, he might have to use those powers no matter what the fallout was.

If he could get them to respond to him in the first place, that was. It had been a long time since he’d tried to use them on purpose after all, and whether it was because of disuse or his inability to focus they certainly didn’t seem to be coming now. Dustin’s panicked shout of “Abort!” behind him spurred his feet into action instead, and he swung once more with the bat before ducking back into the cover of the bus and slamming the door shut behind him, pressing his weight against it.

He’d always considered his powers to be a curse, but damn if he wasn’t reconsidering that stance now. Something slammed heavily into the side of the bus, and then crashed down against the roof, sending the whole place rocking back and forth. Max’s shriek behind him startled him into turning around, just in time to see one of the Demodogs had made its way up to the emergency hatch they’d left open in the roof.

“Out of the way!” Steve barked, pulling her backwards behind him and holding up the bat to keep the thing at bay. Alright, it was now or never. Either he could get the force field thing to work, or they’d all get eaten alive. Come on, come on, there had to be some way to do this! He’d done it before, hadn’t he? He took a deep breath, grit his teeth, and-

The Demodog’s head snapped up and looked off at something in the distance. Without any warning it leaped down from the roof, letting loose a roar echoed by the other Demodogs as they all took off as one.

“What… the _fuck_ was that about,” Steve said, staring off after them. He didn’t know what had pulled them away, but whatever it was… it was like they were being called somewhere. Steve didn’t want to be here when they came back.

“Let’s get the hell out of here.”

~~~~

They’d ended up at the lab, following those things, and Steve had tried very hard to not freak the fuck out about being within 50 feet of that place again. He’d very carefully kept himself in the half of their group that refrained from getting any closer to the lab than the front gate. But it hadn’t mattered; the Demodogs had been there, and Nancy and Jonathan too, and he didn’t even have time to process where the two of them had been these last few days because that guy Bob was _dead_ , eaten by those _things_ that had been seconds away from eating them too back in that junkyard.

It took until they were regrouping back at the Byers’ house for him to really take in anything other than his own spiking terror and the anguish radiating off of Ms. Byers. He’d spent the whole morning and afternoon trying to apologize to Nancy, but after everything that had happened, after seeing her return with Jonathan… There was something different in the way she looked at him. Or maybe it had always been there and he’d just never let the walls around his powers down enough to notice. But he would have had to have been blind to not see it now, let alone feel it the way he could. She loved Jonathan. Now that he felt it, he knew he’d never felt the same kind of love from her before for him. And that was… it hurt, of course, but in light of everything that had happened tonight, and unable to be in denial when he could feel the truth for himself, it wasn’t as hard to accept as he’d thought.

So when he and Nancy were working together on boarding up the windows in the cabin, and she’d turned to him with a quiet, uncertain, “Steve, me and Jonathan…” he just shook his head. She didn’t want to lie anymore, and he didn’t either.

“I know, Nance. I get it.” She looked surprised by his fairly calm, if a little dejected, response. But of course, she didn’t know the truth about him any more than he had known it about her before tonight. “Jonathan… he’s pretty alright. Like I said. I get it.”

Nancy still looked a little uncertain, but after a few moments of concern she allowed herself to smile a little. She stepped toward him and hugged him tight, hugged like it was goodbye and they both knew it really was, and she pressed her face into his shoulder and mumbled, “Thank you, Steve,” and that was it. That was the end of it.

~~~

There was a girl standing in the Byers’ doorway. There was a dead Demodog in the middle of the living room floor, and the door had unlocked and swung open on its own, and Mike was crying or yelling or a little of both, and there was a girl standing in the Byers’ doorway with a nosebleed. And Steve thought to himself, somewhere, distantly, _Oh. This is Eleven._

He let her and Mike have their reunion, and he let Hopper pull Mike aside when he realized where “El” had been this last year, and he tried to avoid meeting Hoppers’ gaze as they left, because if he knew the truth about this girl, who’d been raised in the lab and could move things with her mind and had “011” in black ink on her wrist, then he knew the truth about that boy he’d found in the woods that night too. Maybe he’d known since he’d first laid eyes on El.

Their group splintered as El made her rounds, and Steve waited until she’d had the chance to do so before he stepped forward himself. “So you’re El, huh?” he asked. This was the girl he’d just barely missed meeting last year. He had no intention of doing it again. “Can I, uh, talk to you for a sec? Like, alone?”

“Uh, Steve?” Dustin asked, frowning a little in confusion. “No offense, but what exactly do you have to talk to El about?”

He was about to tell Dustin to mind his own business, but El did it for him just by raising a hand. “It’s okay,” she said, quiet even around her friends, and damn if that didn’t bring Steve right back to being 12 and escaping from the lab. El still looked confused herself, which meant she probably had no idea who he was, but she trusted him enough – likely because of the company he currently kept more so than anything about him – to follow him into a separate room where they could get a little privacy.

Now that they were alone, he cleared his throat uncomfortably, shuffling his weight from foot to foot. This kid was… intense. She pinned Steve with a look that seemed to suggest she knew everything about him, even while Steve knew that to be completely untrue. He shook his head; he’d gotten this far, and he wasn’t going to lose this opportunity again. He needed to know that she was really like him, that they weren’t… alone.

“Look, I know this is weird, but just go with me here for a second, okay?” He looked around for someplace to sit, eventually settling on the bed – Jonathan’s bed, he guessed by the décor – and patting the space next to him until El sat as well. “You… you escaped from the lab, right?”

El tensed a little, but she nodded. One of her hands went up to rest on the opposite arm, a move Steve recognized from his own nervous habits. And right – if he wanted her to understand, he should show her.

“Alright, just don’t tell anyone else about this yet, okay? Well, Hopper knows I guess, but just try to keep it to yourself.”

“Friends don’t lie,” she said with an uncertain frown.

Steve ran a hand through his hair. Who the hell had taught her _that_? He didn’t have time to explain the flaws with that line of logic. “Okay, don’t lie, but just – don’t bring it up then, yeah? If no one asks you about it, you don’t have to talk about it.”

El looked less than sure about his compromise, but she eventually nodded, and that was just going to have to be good enough for now. Steve rolled up his own sleeve halfway, enough to expose his wrist. He pressed his thumb against the spot, rubbing until he felt the concealer flake away and reveal the numbers beneath.

El inhaled sharply. “Seven,” she said in a soft voice, looking up at Steve and then back down at the mark. She reached out like she was about to trace her fingers over the numbers, but at the last second she pulled back. This close to her, it was impossible to block out her high-running emotions; there was surprise, and some happiness, but both were dominated by uncertainty and fear. That wasn’t what he’d been expecting at all.

“You’re afraid?” he asked, twisting his arm a little so the number was now angled away from her.

“I met… another. Of us. Sister.”

“Another?” He’d known, of course, that there were more kids who’d been raised in the lab. He hadn’t expected El to have met anyone else. Though remembering what Hopper had said to her when she’d gotten to the cabin, maybe it was a recent development.

El nodded, looking down at the floor. “She was angry. Wanted to hurt the bad men. She thought Papa was alive, and… and she wanted me to hurt those men too.”

Steve frowned a little. He got it, in a sense. For a while, he’d wanted to hurt the people who’d kept him at that lab too. But he’d carved out a life here for himself regardless of what had happened in his past. It wasn’t perfect, and sometimes he felt like he was keeping more secrets than he knew what to do with, but it was so far removed from the lab that he hardly carried the anger he once did.

“Well,” he said finally, trying not to let the silence stretch too long without answer. “I can’t tell you how to feel about that. But I think… it’s never done me any good to keep looking back at the past. And I don’t know about Brenner being alive. But if he is…” He looked down at El and found himself smiling a little at her. Just the fact that she was here, that neither of them were alone and they were both learning how to get better, it made him think that maybe his powers, the residual effects of his past he’d never really been able to get rid of despite how hard he’d tried, weren’t so bad after all. “You know we’re not going back there without a fight, don’t you?”

El’s face finally broke out into a smile, and before Steve realized she was moving she had already pulled him into a hug. The physical connection brought her emotions up to the surface – some sadness and worry, but resolve had risen in place of the fear. It was brief, but when she pulled away he knew she understood why he’d had to tell her, why she had to know he understood.

Like most things that had happened in the last year, it wasn’t perfect, and it changed so many things. He still tugged his sleeve back down to cover the numbers on his wrist before they left the room, and she still wiped smudged mascara away from her watery eyes. But just that brief moment of seeing himself in a girl who didn’t fully understand the world she lived in yet, and her seeing herself in someone who’d managed to blend in with the rest of the world, he thought it might have helped them both, whatever else this night brought.


	7. Chapter 7

Apparently, the next thing the night decided to bring was babysitting duty. Some of their group were dealing with Will, a task he did not envy them in the least, and some were headed back to the lab to try to close the gate that was letting those Demodog things through, something that caused him to raise his eyebrows a little at El but hell, the kid looked so determined, who was he to object? He knew Hopper would keep an eye out for her.

Unfortunately, that left him sitting at the Byers’ house with all of the kids but El and Will, trying very hard not to think about how many Demodogs might have been prowling around in the dark outside. Oh yeah, and there was one of those things in the _fridge_ for God’s sake, thanks Dustin.

And now he had a whole gaggle of nerds babbling about tunnels and hive minds and “Mind Flayers” and Jesus, where were these kids’ parents? Why in the world had everyone decided he was cut out to watch them? “We are _not_ going into the goddamn tunnels!”

“We need to help El!” Mike protested, making a truly pitiful attempt at getting in Steve’s face given that he was a full foot shorter.

“You know what happens if we go out there? We all die!”

“But-”

“No buts!” Steve attempted to strike his most authoritative pose. “I promised I’d keep you shitheads safe and that’s exactly what I’m doing. We’re staying here. Understood?”

A car engine revved outside before he could get his answer. Max took off for the window, the other kids scrambling behind her and Steve begrudgingly following. “It’s my brother,” she said, ducking back behind the curtains. “He can’t know I’m here, he’ll kill me.”

Steve glanced outside, squinting against the glare of the headlights to try and make out the car that was pulling up to the house. He realized with a sudden sinking feeling that he knew exactly whose car that was.

“Shit. _Hargrove’s_ your brother?!”

Max pulled a face. “Stepbrother,” she corrected. Like that was any better.

“Shit,” Steve repeated, shoulders slumping. Well, he had said he’d keep an eye on these kids. He guessed that meant dealing with an asshole older brother. “Alright, just – stay inside, don’t let him see you then. I’ll deal with this.”

Maybe it would be fine, he thought as he stepped out onto the porch. Maybe Hargrove would buy his story and he’d go home and they could forget tonight had ever happened just like they’d forgotten _last_ night had ever happened.

Yeah, and maybe Steve had a totally normal childhood.

Billy stepped out of his car slow and languid, face illuminated by the glow of the embers at the end of his cigarette which he flicked carelessly onto the front lawn. “Am I dreaming or is that you, Harrington?” Despite his casual tone, his eyes were sharp and angry, getting worse when they fell on Steve. He’d come looking for a fight.

Steve rolled his eyes. No good will built up from yesterday, then. That figured. “Yeah, it’s me, don’t cream your pants.”

“I’m lookin’ for my stepsister. A little birdie told me she was here.”

Steve willed himself not to give anything away. He’d been lying his whole life; this was hardly any different. “Haven’t seen her.”

Billy glanced just past Steve’s shoulder. “Then who is that?” Steve turned in time to see four heads duck under the window.

“Well shit. Listen-” Whatever he was going to say was cut off when Billy surged past him, ramming a shoulder into him and knocking him roughly to the ground. “Fuck, fuck,” he hissed, scrambling to his feet and ignoring the twinge in his shoulder where he’d landed on it. Inside, he had to get back inside now before Billy took whatever the fuck was burning in his eyes out on the kids.

He got there just in time to see Billy looming over Lucas, looking like he was three seconds from killing the kid. Something tight and angry hit him like a wall, and he didn’t know if it was coming from himself or from Billy, but it made him curl his fingers in the collar of Billy’s jacket, haul him backwards, and growl, “Leave him the fuck alone, Hargrove.”

Billy pulled away roughly, looking at him like a predator stalks its prey. “Or what, Harrington? You’re not gonna do anything about it. Too chickenshit. You pretend to be _King Steve_ but when it gets right down to it, you’ll run like you always do.” He shoved Steve with an open palm to the chest this time, only making him stumble a step back. “Thought I told you already. Plant your feet,” Billy sneered, advancing the distance he’d made between them.

He’d spent years of his life – hell, basically his entire life – running from things. He’d run from the lab, he’d run from his completely fucked up childhood in that place, he’d run from any semblance of the weird or strange parts of himself he hadn’t understood and didn’t want. He’d shut himself down until he was the picture of normalcy, of mediocrity, and he’d stuffed all his shit down and away until, on good days, he hardly remembered all the freaky shit about him existed at all. He’d deluded himself into this stupid, _normal_ ideal when there were fucking monsters around him trying to eat his face on a yearly basis, and for what? For Billy Hargrove, completely normal human, to act like he was the worst damn thing Steve has ever faced?

Because he wasn’t. Billy didn’t know half of what Steve had been through. But he was about to find out, because Steve was _sick_ of pretending to be normal while the world around him fell apart anyway.

So when Billy repeated, “Plant your feet,” Steve did.

When Billy moved to shove him again, Steve grabbed his arm, leaning against where Billy’s hand pressed against his chest. Billy’s emotions all but screamed at him with the contact, and instead of blocking them out, he chose to let them in.

He tore down the mental wall and let himself honestly _feel_ for the first time in ages. Immediately, sensory information came rushing back to him. At his back, the kids radiated tension and fear, with some worry mixed in, likely predicting he was about to get himself beat half to death by Billy. Max was annoyed, but much more urgent feelings of distress all but swamped the annoyance.

Billy was a different story. At first, his emotional read was about what Steve had expected; anger rolled off him in hot waves, burning in its intensity and nearly overpowering everything else. But there was a bitter undercurrent just below the surface, something that fed into the anger but tainted it as a result. Billy was mad, sure, he was ready for a fight. But more than that? He was scared. He was downright _terrified_.

It was the same fear he’d just barely felt brush his consciousness that night at the party when he’d first had the sense that maybe Billy wasn’t a machine made only to be a complete dick. That night, it had chipped away at whatever carefree affectation and swagger Billy always put on. Feeling it now, as strongly as it rushed in, seemed to shatter the whole illusion all at once.

“You’re afraid,” Steve said, the confirmation startled out of him. He released his hold on Billy’s arm, which fell to his side, though Billy’s snarl only deepened. “You put on this big tough guy act, but you’re not, are you? You won’t admit it, but something’s got you running scared just like the rest of us.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I think I do.”

Billy’s responding grin was nasty, but the fear radiating off him only deepened. He looked caught-out, hunted even. For a second he just worked his jaw, and Steve knew he’d been right, though he didn’t know if it was going to get him different results. Then Billy’s patented smirk settled itself back on his face. “Tough guy act, huh? Well, how’s this for an act?”

Faster than Steve could hope to sidestep, Billy’s fist flew forward towards his face. Steve tried ineffectively to raise his arms and block the blow, but even in the slowed way he processed the movement, he could tell his arms weren’t going to make it in time. Instead of coming up fully to guard his face, however, some long-buried instinct sent his hands out in a staying pose, fingers splayed like he was pushing outwards despite being far too slow to make shoving Billy an effective option.

The punch he was expecting never came. Instead, Billy’s fist seemed to collide with thin air – an air that seemed to shimmer with trapped energy, taking a near-physical shape and soft red glow as it manifested around Steve’s hands, stalling Billy’s punch in place. There was only a split second where Billy’s eyes went wide, focusing on his still hands, before the pent-up energy exploded outwards and sent Billy flying backwards to collide back into the Byers’ fridge.

Shit, Steve hadn’t done anything like that since… since he’d escaped from the lab half a decade ago. He felt weak and achey, like he was straining a muscle he’d allowed to atrophy, and he brushed something wet and coppery from his nose.

For a beat, the only noise was Billy’s soft groan of pain. Then abruptly Dustin erupted, “What the shit Steve?!”

Right. Loudmouthed kids. He’d almost forgotten.

Slumped almost comically on the floor against the fridge, Billy groaned again, snapping Steve’s attention back to him. “What… what the _fuck_ was that?”

Before he could say anything, the door of the fridge, looking a little dented from the force of the impact, gave up the ghost and popped open. Too late, Steve remembered its contents just in time for the Demodog carcass to be deposited in Billy’s lap.

“ _Fuck!_ Billy yelped, shoving the thing off of him and shooting to his feet. He didn’t look much better when he got a good look at what had fallen on him. “What the fuck is that! And why was it _in the fridge!_ ”

Steve gave Dustin a pointed look. The kid just shrugged back at him, still looking like he’d just seen a ghost. Or a force field spring from a high schooler’s bare hands.

“Harrington,” Billy said slowly, taking a few steps back from where the Demodog lay, “You’re going to tell me what the hell is going on, what that thing is, why you have fucking superpowers, and when I walked into bizarro land!”

“Never thought I’d agree with Billy about anything,” Max said softly, “but yeah, I’d like to hear about the superpowers part too.” She turned to Lucas, looking a little accusatory. “I thought you said El was the one with the powers?”

“She is!” he insisted, though he cast a dubious look towards Steve.

“Steve. Dude.” Dustin lifted both his eyebrows in exaggerated shock. “Either you spontaneously developed powers or you’ve been keeping this a secret from us this whole time. So I ask again. What the shit?”

“Alright fine, Jesus, knock it off.” Steve rolled up the sleeve of his jacket just far enough that the numbers he’d shown to El earlier were visible once again. “I was… at the lab too. Same as El. Just, uh, earlier.”

“Holy shit,” Dustin mumbled, eyes fixed on the tattoo. Then they snapped back up to meet Steve’s. “And you never told us you could do this? That’s _freaking awesome_.”

Not the word he would have used. “Why would I have told-”

“This is perfect,” Mike interrupted. “Now we can do down into the tunnels and help El!”

Not this again. “Are you a dumbass? I told you already, you’re going to get yourself killed-”

“If we go in barehanded. But we’re _not_ barehanded now, are we? We’ve got you and your powers!”

“No. No no no, you’re not convincing me to go on a suicide mission. Absolutely not.”

Mike’s lip curled stubbornly. “I’m not losing her again.” It felt a little weird to think it, but the way he stood, all passionate confidence and wholehearted belief, he reminded Steve a little bit of Nancy. His desperation was practically palpable, to the point that Steve had to mentally distance himself from it to keep from getting overwhelmed. But in the face of that kind of conviction, well, Steve had never done well, had he?

“…Fine. But you little shits stay behind me, and don’t make any stupid moves.”

“Will somebody please tell me what the fuck is going on here? And where the hell you think you’re going?” Billy still looked like he was stuck in processing, which was probably fair considering all of this was new to him. The shock of it all seemed to have melted the hotheadedness out of him at least.

“I told you there was shit about me you wouldn’t believe, didn’t I?”

“I thought you meant-” Billy’s jaw snapped shut abruptly. “Never mind. Just… not _this_.”

Steve sighed. “Look, if you want an explanation, I’ll give you one. Later. But we’ve gotta go. Just go home Hargrove.”

“Like _hell_ ,” Billy snapped, and Steve really hoped he wasn’t still going to insist on a fight because even with his powers he didn’t think he’d fare very well. “I’m not trying to explain all this shit if Maxine dies in some fucking tunnels with you and all of her nerd friends.” He dug around in his front pocket and retrieved a set of keys. “Let’s go. You can explain what the hell _that thing_ was in the car.”

Loathe as he was to admit it, Steve wasn’t really in a position to argue. He was tired from the almost-fight and using his powers so much, and he needed to save what strength he had left to deal with whatever they found down there. And he should probably at least attempt damage control with Billy so the whole town didn’t find out about this stuff.

So, despite his reservations and the protests of the kids, he simply said, “Lead the way then.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter features art from kishock-harpoon as part of the big bang which you can find [here](https://kishock-harpoon.tumblr.com/post/611543943766753280/my-second-set-of-artwork-for-the-harringrovebang)


	8. Chapter 8

He’d had better car rides. To be fair, he’d had worse ones too. But this one probably ranked in his bottom three.

For one, Steve wasn’t driving, and he hadn’t sat passenger and been sober for a few years. Billy wasn’t exactly a conscientious driver either. He tried not to wince every time Billy cut a turn sharp and his still-achey shoulder got jostled against the door. Sitting less than a foot away from Billy and trusting him not to drive them all into a ditch just minutes after nearly getting into what he was sure would have been a nasty fistfight was strange, to put it mildly. More strange was trying to explain secret labs and interdimensional Demogorgons while mentally fending off Billy’s feelings of confusion and disbelief.

For another, there was a group of obnoxious kids in the back seat, each one seeming to think they were personally entitled to his life story. Most of all Dustin, who asked for what had to be the 50th time that night, “How could you have had superpowers and not have told us, Steve!”

“Oh, like you told me about El?” he shot back, though at least getting to meet her for real this time had lessened that blow. So long as they both made it out of tonight alive. “Gee, I dunno, somehow getting kidnapped isn’t exactly my favorite story.”

“ _Steve,_ ” he pressed, “Come on. We’re buds! You could have told us!”

“I basically found out your name today,” he reminded him, though the corner of his lips twitched in a begrudging smile. “Well, you know now. It’s just the force fields and the feelings reading shit, and I’m pretty sure only one of those is going to slow the Demodogs down.”

“ _Feelings?_ ” Billy repeated, shooting him a look. Instead of rolling his eyes and saying something macho, Steve noticed his words had actually made Billy a little anxious. Was there something he didn’t want Steve sensing? 

“Okay, we can all agree feelings powers are pretty lame,” Lucas said, and right, there it was. “But the force field thing is pretty cool!”

“Hey Steve, do you think your force field would hold up against Superman’s heat vision?” Dustin asked.

Mike scoffed. “Dude, no way. Superman’s heat vision is as powerful as the sun! There’s no way Steve’s stupid shield is gonna block that.”

The kids devolved into squabbling, mostly at his expense, and he let them. Instead his gaze flicked over to Billy, who was staring resolutely at the road. “Look, if it really bothers you, I can turn the feelings shit off. Mostly, at least.” Close proximity like the car wouldn’t do him a lot of favors, but even if he was sick of suppressing these powers, he knew they still weren’t entirely welcome. It was much easier to accept that someone could throw shit around with their mind. It was a little less easy to feel comfortable with someone you couldn’t hide your actual feelings from.

“What? I don’t care.” Billy blew a stray strand of hair away from his eyes. “What do I have to hide?”

“At that party. You said you thought I was talking about something else when I said I was pretending all the time. What did you mean?”

“Like I said, it doesn’t matter.” But he was nervous, pinkie finger drumming an uncomfortable beat against the steering wheel. There was something more to it than that.

Steve thought about what else had happened that night. The way Billy had looked at him, softened by alcohol and slumped against him. The hand he’d placed against his thigh. The way something had tickled at the back of Steve’s mind, some old memory or feeling he’d pushed down and locked away just like his powers and now, again like them, was bubbling to the surface all at once.

He knew it then, what secret Billy had thought he’d been hiding. What secret Billy was hiding as well by the look of things. He couldn’t say it, couldn’t name it in words, but he knew it all the same. And, if he was really honest with himself, Billy’s initial assumption about what they’d talked about that night wasn’t… entirely wrong. Steve had done his best to forget about it, sure, but it didn’t mean guys suddenly stopped catching his interest. It just meant, like everything else, he’d gotten better at hiding it. Not that he thought he was entirely ready to take that big of a leap in the middle of the shitstorm this night was already turning out to be. Still… “I think – I mean, look, stop me if I’m wrong here, man, but I know what I really felt from you when we were in the locker room, y’know?”

“What the fuck are you trying to say-”

“Nothing!” Steve raised a staying hand. He glanced at the backseat, but the kids were still wrapped up in their debate. “Just that small town Hawkins sucks for more reasons than its Upside Down problem, yeah?”

The car jerked roughly to a stop, and Steve hissed as his bruised shoulder made rough contact with the seat belt. “We’re here,” Billy said through ground teeth, and proceeded to mutely swing himself out of the car. _That went well._ Then again, Steve hadn’t gotten punched, so, progress.

Well, it probably wasn’t the best time to get distracted with stuff like this anyway. Either they’d get eaten by Demodogs in these tunnels or they’d somehow survive, and with any luck Billy would be freaked out enough by the night at large that he never came near Steve again, and that would be the end of it. For now, he had bigger shit to worry about. Like keeping himself and these other little shits alive long enough to worry about tomorrow.

When Steve stepped out of the car, the kids were already rooting around in the supplies they’d thrown in Billy’s trunk, under Max’s supervision. He stepped over to help, passing out bandanas and cans of gasoline and trying not to feel like the world’s worst babysitter for giving a bunch of preteens something so flammable. Finally, he pulled one last item from the trunk – the nail bat he’d fended off Demodogs with just earlier that day.

This he held out for Billy, who was somehow glaring at him and also trying to look completely disinterested at the same time. He only raised an eyebrow at the bat. “That what they teach you to make in Hawkins arts and crafts?”

Steve wiggled the bat under his nose impatiently. “You want to get killed down there, that’s your choice. Don’t say I didn’t try to arm you.”

Billy rolled his eyes. “Drama queen,” he muttered, but he finally reached out to take it. He watched Steve for a moment. “You gonna use those freaky powers of yours? Or was that a one-time thing?”

“Of course it wasn’t a one time thing.” _I think._ He hadn’t exactly had a lot of time to practice. But the idea felt familiar to him now, finally letting in a part of himself he’d always had but simply ignored, and this time when he tried to form the force field it came easily to him, glowing faintly in the near-pitch dark.

“Huh. Alrighty then.” Billy hefted the nail bat up onto a shoulder, testing its weight. “Let’s go.”

Steve fit his goggles over his eyes and tied the bandana over his face like a makeshift mask, waiting for the others to do the same. “This is still a shitty idea,” he muttered, even as he made sure the rope they’d use to climb down into the tunnels was secure.

The kids scrambled down first, Mike obviously getting impatient and leaping head-first into trouble despite Steve’s protests and the rest following suit, ever unwilling to abandon a party member or whatever the hell they always said. Steve maybe should have gone first though. He didn’t hear any screaming, so it was probably fine. He glanced over at Billy, who looked more than a little ridiculous in the protective gear, his blonde curls spilling out from behind the goggle strap. Billy just raised an eyebrow and gestured magnanimously down towards the pit.

_If I never see you again, goodbye fresh air,_ Steve thought as he followed the kids down into the tunnels, hearing the thud of boots signifying Billy hadn’t simply gotten back in the car and ditched them.

Mike was fiddling with some map, a much smaller version of whatever Will had drawn that had been plastered all over the Byers’ house. “I think it’s this way,” he said, starting off in one direction.

Steve reached out a hand to stop him. “Nuh-uh, if you get eaten down here Nancy’ll kill me.”

Mike huffed. “Yeah, wouldn’t want your girlfriend mad at you,” he muttered. Steve tried not to wince. _Low blow, little man._ Then again, he was probably a little busy to have picked up on the fact that he and Nancy were very much not dating now.

“You little shits just stay behind me, yeah?”

“Aye-aye, Captain Steve,” Billy snarked from somewhere behind him.

“Hargrove, I swear to God, I will let the monsters eat you and I will feel nothing.” Only Billy’s sharp bark of laughter followed his words.

They started moving, but it was a slow process. The ground seemed to shift under every step, and the walls all but pulsed with movement. One or two times one of the kids stopped to poke at the walls – at least Lucas and Max seemed to have the good sense not to go sticking their fingers where they didn’t belong – and Dustin shrieked as his hand came away coated in some sort of slime.

Even through the goggles and bandana mask, Steve could see the face Billy pulled. “So what the fuck are we looking for down here again?” he asked, nudging at a stray vine with the tip of the nail bat. The vine shuddered, pulling away on its own, and _nope_ , a thousand times nope, what the fuck.

Steve opened his mouth to respond, but as he did something wrapped hard around his ankle and _yanked_ forward, sending him flat on his back. His feet kicked ineffectively at the ground as he failed to find any purchase, the vine around his ankle not giving any ground. “ _Shit!_ ” he yelled, tugging at the damn thing but it wouldn’t let go, goddamn it, let _go_ -

Something whooshed past his ear and landed heavily an inch from his foot. There was a shriek like an animal in pain, and suddenly the pressure around his leg released, the vine slinking backwards and tugging free of the nail bat that was embedded in it. _Fuck. This was such a bad idea._

A hand entered the corner of his vision; he looked up to see Billy, wide-eyed and dare he say _worried_ , staring back at him and waiting to help him up. “You good?” he asked, clearing his throat awkwardly a half-second later.

Holy shit. Hargrove had actually saved him. They’d been on somewhat of a truce until this Upside Down stuff was dealt with, yeah, but there was a difference between agreeing not to kill each other and actively trying not to get each other killed. To his credit, Billy didn’t look especially like he regretted it; he just looked gruff, avoiding eye contact for some reason even though-

_Oh,_ Steve thought, and then, _Huh._ Well, there was time to deal with things that weren’t avoiding imminent death once they were out of here. For now, he grabbed Billy’s hand and pulled himself up to standing. “Thanks,” he said, only half-surprised Billy hadn’t immediately dropped him back on his ass instead.

“Don’t mention it princess. I’m a regular knight in shining armor.”

_You’re a regular asshole in cut-off sleeves,_ Steve thought uncharitably, but he didn’t say it. Dude had saved his life after all, he figured he deserved one good ribbing at least.

Now they just needed to get back on track. What direction were they headed to get to that core-

“Good news,” he said between pants, “I think we found what we’re looking for.” The central tangle of vines spread all across the room, which had a good number of tunnels spreading out from it. If anywhere down here was a ‘hub,’ this was it for sure. “You guys still have the gasoline, right?”

They made relatively quick work of soaking the place. Steve wrinkled his nose against the acrid smell but kept pouring until the big clump of vines was coated. “That should do it,” he said, taking a step back so none of them would be set on fire. He pulled a lighter from his pocket, flicked on the flame, and with no small amount of uncertainty tossed it into the center of the room.

The vines went up in flames fast. The shrieking noise he’d heard when the first vine had been hit by the nail bat was amplified by about a thousand, which was nearly enough to distract from the heat pouring off the flames. But after a beat the shrieking quelled, even as the fire raged on.

“…Is that it?” Billy asked, turning to look at Steve as if _he_ had any goddamn idea. As he did, something moved behind him, a flicker of shadow against firelight that bunched its muscles and leaped directly towards the back of Billy’s head.

“Get down!” he snapped, reaching out to all but throw Billy behind him as the Demodog’s flower petal jaws went wide. The force field flared to like in his palms, smacking into the Demodog and sending it flying back into the fire where it landed with a pained yelp. Thank God that had worked – he’d acted on instinct alone, but now that the thing had been dealt with he was realizing that if it hadn’t worked he would have been Demo-chow. But he hadn’t had to think about it at all. Running out in front of Billy like that, it had been the most natural thing in the world.

Billy looked shaken himself. Through his own panic Steve caught flashes of his surprise and something warmer that caught him off guard. Clearly Billy had noticed that he had been a handful of seconds away from never making it out of these tunnels. “Steve, you-” he started, but Steve cut him off.

“No time! Let’s get the fuck out of here!”

Something rumbled at the opposite end of the tunnels, and he did _not_ want to stick around to figure out what it was. They headed back the way they’d come, this time moving much faster and keeping the kids between the two of them with Steve in the back, force field at the ready. It probably wasn’t an amazing idea to keep it up for so long since he had almost no practice and no idea how long he could keep it up for, but he sure as hell wasn’t getting caught without it when those _things_ were down here. Especially not after they’d pissed them off.

_Hope that helped El. Now close that gate!_

They raced back to the exit, hastened by the sound of more of those things in the distance. They finally reached the rope and helped the kids climb up first, boosting them high enough that they only needed to shimmy up another foot or so. Steve had just finished helping the last of them, Mike, when the sound of approaching Demodogs grew closer.

He and Billy were both still in the tunnels. Abruptly, he knew they weren’t both going to have time to make it to the surface. And as much of an ass as Billy had been, after tonight, he couldn’t let him die down here because he was pulled into all of Steve’s weird lab shit.

Steve shoved him back a step as the horde drew closer. “Go, asshole!”

Billy looked at him like he was crazy. “And have to deal with the brats all by myself? I’d rather die to the fucking lizards.” It was Steve’s turn to look at him like he was crazy, but Billy only shrugged and held up the nail bat. “Plant your feet, right Harrington?”

“Unbelievable.” Steve shook his head, turned the force field towards the mass of Demodogs closing in on him, and hoped that being torn apart limb from limb wouldn’t hurt too badly.

They braced for impact, but not a single one of the Demodogs paid either of them any mind. The mob parted as it streamed around them, leaving them completely untouched and running with single-minded focus through to the other end of the tunnels, like they’d been called away.

“Where the fuck did they go?” Billy asked, staring after them, bat dangling loosely at his side now.

Steve had an idea, but he didn’t like it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter also features art from kishock-harpoon as part of the big bang which you can find [here](https://kishock-harpoon.tumblr.com/post/611543943766753280/my-second-set-of-artwork-for-the-harringrovebang)


	9. Chapter 9

By the time they’d gotten the hell out of dodge, it was apparently all over. The gate was sealed, the Mind Fillet or whatever had been driven out of Will, and they were left to lick their wounds as the first hints of sunlight rose over the horizon.

It wasn’t exactly as peaceful as it sounded. This was not helped by the fact that _someone_ \- Dustin – had let it slip without any preamble that Steve had been “hiding his cool powers from them all along,” which wasn’t exactly how Steve was planning to broach the topic with the rest of their group, but hey, when had his plans ever worked out like he’d wanted? And he’d said he was going to stop hiding this stuff anyway, hadn’t he?

Just maybe not the same night they’d had to fend off an inter-dimensional threat. Again.

“So you’re… from the lab? Like El?” Nancy asked, looking at him like he was seeing an alien in Steve’s place. Which, frankly, was kind of fair. She’d just found out her ex-boyfriend had superpowers. “And you knew this whole time?” She directed her accusatory stare at Hopper, who just held out his hands.

“Didn’t get it till El showed up, but yeah.” He sighed. “God, back when I thought a kidnapping was the worst thing to ever happen in Hawkins.”

“Holy shit,” Jonathan breathed, looking about as baffled as Nancy. It was almost kind of cute, the way their expressions mirrored each other, if Steve wasn’t still nursing a _little_ annoyance at the two of them. “I totally remember that now. Mom wouldn’t let me play outside for like a week.”

“Wasn’t exactly a fun time for me either,” Steve said pointedly, and Jonathan had the good grace to look at least a little embarrassed. “Right. Well, now that this is all out in the open, I’m gonna grab some fresh air, yeah?” He didn’t wait for a response, instead heading out onto the Byers’ front porch and letting the door swing shut behind him.

He was better off telling them the truth, he knew – they’d seen enough and been through more than enough that he had no doubts they’d accept it without a problem – but he couldn’t deal with the pitying looks, the sympathy that all but radiated from all of their emotions. Maybe he’d just spent too long bottling shit up, maybe he was fucked up in a permanent way, a way he didn’t know how to fix, but when they looked at him like that…

“What brings you out here?” Billy, sitting on the porch stairs and apparently watching the sun come up, cigarette between his fingers wafting thin curls of smoke, twisted to look at him. There wasn’t any hostility in his gaze anymore, at least not in this moment. It was like they were back at that party again, but this time there was no excuse of drunkenness to smooth out their rough edges.

It was funny, how much a single night could change things between them.

Steve sat heavily next to him, taking the olive branch for what it was. “Smoke break?” he tried, looking hopefully at Billy until he rolled his eyes and passed his cigarette. Steve had never been a huge smoker, but if you couldn’t smoke to calm your nerves after what he’d gone through today, when could you?

They sat in relative silence for a while, just watching the sun come up, passing the cigarette back and forth. It was weird, avoiding people he’d been close to for the last year to seek out the company of someone he’d barely entered into civil speaking terms with, but not in a bad way. He was really, really tired of fighting with Billy.

Eventually, it was Billy who broke the silence. “I should get Max home soon,” he said, still staring off towards the road. “There’s not a lie in the world that’s gonna explain why it took so long.” The corners of his mouth turned down in a grimace. “Neil’ll be pissed either way.”

It wasn’t really something Steve had much experience with. When your parents routinely fucked off and left you with your big house all to yourself, you stopped having much of a concept of curfew or parental concern. Not that parental concern was the issue here, judging by the way Billy spoke. Now, shitty parents, _that_ Steve knew.

“Then don’t go.” The words slipped out without conscious thought, but Steve didn’t take them back. “Not yet at least. Most of Hawkins is still asleep anyway.”

Billy shook his head. “Better to do it earlier.” But he didn’t make any move to stand, and Steve didn’t remind him.

“Harrington.”

“Yeah?”

“Why’d you do that, back in the tunnels?” Billy shifted a little, and Steve couldn’t help but pick up on his discomfort when their arms brushed. “Save my life, I mean.”

Steve raised an eyebrow. “You would have preferred I let that thing eat you?”

Billy glared, his eyes effectively communicating _that’s not what I meant, you dumbass._ “Look. I’m just saying that if it was me, if some dickhead who’d been shitty to me since we first met was standing there about to get his head bitten off by one of those Demofuckers… I don’t think I would have done what you did.”

Steve actually considered it for a minute. Why had he? He had every reason to hate Billy. If it hadn’t been for the interruption of his powers and that Demodog in the fridge, Billy might have beaten the shit out of him last night. And yet he hadn’t hesitated. When it came right down to it, he couldn’t bring himself to hate Billy at all.

“I don’t think that’s true. I mean, you saved me right before that too.” Billy looked like he was about to protest, so Steve plowed on. “You act like a dick all the time, but you’re not, are you? You only pretend to be an ass because you can’t stand the thought of someone actually seeing you.”

Billy’s eyes narrowed further. “I’m not like you, Harrington. I don’t have shit to hide.” But both of them knew that wasn’t true. Even before tonight, they’d known on some level.

“Aren’t you sick of lying to yourself all the time?”

“I don’t have your weird powers-”

“Fuck the powers! This isn’t about them. This is about you, and me, and whatever the fuck _this_ ,” he gestured emphatically between the two of them, “is. And don’t fucking deny it, you already know I’m like a goddamn human lie detector.”

“Fuck off, Harrington.” Billy dropped the remainder of the cigarette, stomping it out with his boot heel. He tried to stand, but Steve grabbed his arm.

“And now you’re _running away!_ ” He breathed deep, trying to calm the swirl of his and Billy’s combined emotions in his head. “Listen. I get it. If _anyone_ gets it, hiding a part of yourself, it’s me. And it doesn’t have to be today. It doesn’t have to be me. But just… just try to tell yourself the truth for once.”

Billy pulled free of his grasp, but the fight in his gaze was gone. “I have to go get Max,” he said, and started off towards the house. This time Steve let him go.

~~~

The rest of the month passed in blessed uneventfulness. It took a while, but everyone else got over the powers thing – it wasn’t like it was the weirdest thing they’d ever heard of, and his desire to have kept them secret before was understandable enough. With the year’s Upside Down threat behind them (and no, Steve was not being paranoid by expecting another one next year, he was being perfectly reasonable all things considered), they all tried to appreciate the relative calm.

Billy didn’t talk to him again, not even when they were the last ones in the locker room. He didn’t fuck with him either, which Steve supposed he should have been grateful for. It probably shouldn’t have felt as disappointing as it was.

One thing, however, had changed. Thanks to his babysitting abilities, he’d gotten roped into ferrying the kids around between the arcades and varying basements for multiple-hours-long Dungeons and Dragons games. This meant he was, despite his protests, dragged into their sessions, much to Dustin’s excitement.

“I put up a force field.”

“Your character is a paladin, Steve! You don’t _have_ any force field spells!” Mike bitched, pointing at something on Steve’s character sheet he knew Steve wasn’t even going to glance at, why did he bother? “You can cast Shield of Faith, but it’s not going to do shit against a Beholder!”

“That’s total bullshit,” Steve grumbled. “I can do it in real life but not in the damn game?” He nodded towards El, who was watching the conflict with wide eyes. “And she gets to use her powers!”

Mike rolled his eyes so hard Steve honestly worried he was going to scramble his brains. “She’s a level four warlock, you’re level one!”

“Alright, fine, fine. I’ll hit it with the pointy stick then.” He ignored Lucas’ pointed correction of _it’s called a polearm, Steve_ and rolled. A one stared up at him. Max tried and failed to cover up her bark of laughter. He slumped back in his chair. “Of course.”

The die abruptly spun in place, flipping over to reveal a 20 instead. He raised an eyebrow at El. “Friends help friends,” she said simply, giving him a small smile.

Before he could reply, the doorbell sounded from upstairs. They were all crowded into the Wheeler’s basement, so Steve hadn’t realized how late it had gotten until the noise reminded him that parents would probably be coming by to pick up the kids soon. “Don’t all jump up to get it at once,” he said when the kids just looked at him, rising and heading up the stairs.

The person waiting on the doorstep was not, in fact, a parent, but was instead Billy Hargrove. Upon seeing Steve, he fixed his gaze somewhere above Steve’s left shoulder, radiating discomfort. “Uh, you must be here for Max. I’ll go get her-”

“Wait.” Billy grabbed his arm, fingers closing around his wrist. Steve paused. “I have to talk to you first. In private.” Billy glanced past him, then tugged Steve outside and shut the door. Steve stumbled with the momentum, catching himself before he could look like a total idiot.

Despite his insistence on needing to talk to him, Billy remained silent, just staring at him. It was getting a little weird. “Uh, dude-”

“Shut up.” Billy took a deep breath, then sighed just as heavily. “I thought about what you said. About not lying to myself.”

Steve froze. “Oh?” he forced past his lips, hoping he didn’t sound as hopeful – _surprised_ , damn it, not hopeful – as he felt.

“It’s different here. Than California, I mean.” Billy shifted his weight. “Not that it ever mattered much to Neil where we were but…”

Steve tried not to let his disappointment show. Maybe he’d been an idiot to think Billy Hargrove, of all people, had pulled him aside to have a private conversation that would have ended in some sort of, what? Some big love confession like Steve would have pulled for Nancy a year ago? Even if Steve was being honest with himself – which he was trying to do more often these days – and knew how _he_ felt about Billy, despite his best efforts, it didn’t mean Billy felt any sort of way about Steve. He’d just deluded himself into thinking it, maybe, but he had been so sure of what he had felt that night, down in the tunnels, saving each other’s lives…

“What I’m trying to say,” Billy said, cutting into Steve’s thoughts, “is that it couldn’t be like California. So if this whole ‘open and honest’ push of yours means that’s a deal breaker, then-”

“A deal breaker?” Steve repeated, dumbstruck. Was Billy trying to say what he thought he was?

“Well, is it or isn’t it?” Billy looked supremely uncomfortable, a far cry from his usual casual sprawl. It was a nice change of pace, and Steve might have enjoyed it more if his heart hadn’t been pounding in his throat. Because this was – holy shit, this was actually happening, and he was taking too long to answer and Billy was starting to look at him funny and he should really say something-

“Yes!” Billy flinched, and Steve mentally replayed his question. “No, I mean – no, it not a deal breaker. It is definitely not a deal breaker.” It wasn’t like Steve was exactly itching to come out. Not lying to yourself was one thing, making a dumbass decision like that was a whole other.

All of the tension left Billy’s shoulders in an instant. “Cool,” he said, some of his usual blind confidence returning. “That’s – cool. I’m glad.” He paused. “Well, I should probably get Max.”

“Oh, right.” Steve followed Billy back inside, waiting upstairs while he collected her from the basement. As they headed for the door again, Billy glanced back, gave a private little grin, and said, “See ya around, Harrington.”

Steve couldn’t help his answering smile, even if he was sure it made him look like a total dumbass.

“Yeah. See ya around, Hargrove.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My first ever Big Bang is complete! This was a lot of fun to work on, and it was awesome to have a partner that influenced my work and how I structured certain scenes as well as kept me accountable for finishing in a reasonable time period lol. If you haven't yet, go give kishock-harpoon some love for their art!!
> 
> On another note, if you're annoyed with canon and craving a Harringrove-esque relationship that actually works out, here's my official recommendation to watch Sex Education on Netflix. It is, as a fair warning, rather NSFW, but it both contains a character pair that is basically 90% Steve and Billy and is just a really good show in general.
> 
> With that said, I only want to say that I hope you have enjoyed this fic. I am always a sucker for Powers!Steve, so this was a fun one for me.


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